Montesquieu '' The Spirit Of Laws'' [ Cambridge, Integral]

CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

MONTESQUIEU

The Spirit of the Lam

Prolem sine matre creatum

Ovid , Metamorphose 2.553

Contents

Introduction xi

Principal events in Montesquieu ’s life xxix

Bibliographical note xxxi

Translators ’ preface xxxiv

List of abbreviations xxxix

Author’s foreword xli

Preface xliii

Figure i xlvi

Part 1

B o o k i On laws in general 3

B o o K 2 On laws deriving directly from the nature of the

government 10

B o o k 3 On the principles of the three governments 2 1

B o o k 4 That the laws of education should be relative to the

principles of the government 3 1

B o o k 5 That the laws given by the legislator should be

relative to the principle of the government 42

B 00 K 6 Consequences of the principles of the various
governments in relation to the simplicity of civil
and criminal laws, the form of judgments, and the
establishment of penalties 72

B 00 k 7 Consequences of the different principles of the
three governments in relation to sumptuary laws,
luxury, and the condition of women

vii

96

Contents

B o o K 8 On the corruption of the principles of the three

governments 1x2

Part 2

B o o K 9 On the laws in their relation with defensive force 13 1
Book 10 On laws in their relation with offensive force 1 3 8

Book i l On the laws that form political liberty in its

relation with the constitution 154

Book 12 On the laws that form political liberty in relation

to the citizen 187

B o o K 1 3 On the relations that the levy of taxes and the size

of public revenues have with liberty 213

Part 3

B o o k 14 On the laws in their relation to the nature of the

climate 231

Book 15 How the laws of civil slavery are related with the

nature of the climate 246

Book 16 How the laws of domestic slavery are related to

the nature of the climate 264

Book 17 How the laws of political servitude are related to

the nature of the climate 278

B 0 o K 18 On the laws in their relation with the nature of

the terrain 285

B o o K 19 On the laws in their relation with the principles
forming the general spirit, the mores, and the
manners of a nation 308

Part 4

B o OK 20 On the laws in their relation to commerce,

considered in its nature and its distinctions 337

B 0 0 K 2 1 On laws in their relation to commerce, considered

in the revolutions it has had in the world 354

B 0 o K 22 On laws in their relation to the use of money 398

B o ok 23 On laws in their relation to the number of

inhabitants 427

viii

Contents

Part 5

B o o K 24 On the laws in their relation to the religion

established in each country, examined in respect
to its practices and within itself 459

B o o K 25 On the laws in their relation with the

establishment of the religion of each country, and
of its external police 479

B o O K 26 On the laws in the relation they should have with

the order of things upon which they are to enact 494

Part 6

Book 27 Only Chapter. On the origin and revolutions

of the Roman laws on inheritance 521

B o o K 28 On the origin and revolutions of the civil laws

among the French 532

B o o k 29 On the way to compose the laws 602

B o o k 30 The theory of the feudal laws among the Franks
in their relation with the establishment of the
monarchy 619

B O o K 3 1 The theory of the feudal laws among the Franks
in their relation to the revolutions of their
monarchy 669

Bibliography 723

Index of names and places 735

Index of works cited 747

IX

Introduction

In a letter written in 1748 when The Spirit of the Laws was first
published Montesquieu wrote, “I can say that I have worked on it my
whole life: I was given some law books when I left my college ; I sought
their spirit, I worked, but I did nothing worthwhile. I discovered my
principles twenty years ago: they are quite simple; anyone else working
as hard as I did would have done better. But I swear that this book
nearly killed me; I am going to rest now; I shall work no more” ( Oeuvres
de Montesquieu, ed. Andre Masson (3 vols., Paris, 1950-1954), vol. 3,
p. 1200).

The publication of The Spirit of the Laws did mark the end of
Montesquieu’s work. He was, like La Bruyere and Montaigne before
him, a man who put all he knew into his one book. Although it was
published as Diderot, d’Alembert, and Rousseau were imagining the
Enlightenment in the coffee houses and salons of Paris, and although
the first volume of the Encyclopedia and Rousseau’s Discourse on the Arts
and Sciences appeared just three years later, these facts suggest the
wrong context. Rather, The Spirit of the Laws belongs to the first half of
the eighteenth century - to a period of relative quiet when one could
think of reform, muddling through, or marking time. Montesquieu, for
example, wrote of Cromwell, “It was a fine spectacle in the last century
to see the impotent attempts of the English to establish democracy
among themselves. As those who took part in public affairs had no
virtue at all, as their ambition was excited by the success of the most
audacious one and the spirit of one faction was repressed only by the
spirit of another, the government was constantly changing; the people,
stunned, sought democracy and found it nowhere. Finally, after much

Introduction

motion and many shocks and jolts, they had to come to rest on the veiy
government that had been proscribed” (3.3). Here Montesquieu
lectured the English, as Burke was later to lecture the French, for
forgetting the need to preserve the forms as they changed toward a
popular government.

In retrospect we have identified three different ways of life in France
before the revolution: that of the orders of the feudal monarchy, that of
the absolute king and his servants, the bureaucrats, and their equal
subjects, and that of those corners of society which supported the new
thought and freedom. But in Montesquieu’s time the distinction was
not so clear. An examination of Montesquieu’s life provides a view of
the eighteenth century as it impinged upon Montesquieu; he was a
feudal proprietor, wine merchant, parliamentarian, academician, man
of letters. Although he took his place briefly in the Parliament of
Bordeaux and toyed with the notion of serving the king in foreign
relations, he principally worked to maintain his family and took part in
the academies and other less formal gatherings of like-minded men
and women. Here we shall first consider Montesquieu’s life as a noble
landowner, then as an eighteenth-century man of letters, and finally as
the author of The Spirit of the Laws. Then we shall proceed to the book
itself and its reception.

The noble landowner

Montesquieu’s family first appears among the provincial nobility of
Bordeaux, when Jean de Secondat, whose wife was related to the
Plantagenets, was ennobled in 1562. The tide was raised to a barony in
1606 by Henry IV. Two generations later, Montesquieu’s grandfather,
whose wife was the daughter of the First President of the parliament,
became President a Mortier in the Parliament of Bordeaux. (The office
of president was bought, sold, and inherited; there were, in the
parliament, a number of Presidents a Mortier who served on various
panels as judges and administrators and one First President.) This
family offered its members the choice of either the parliamentary
nobility of the robe or the military nobility of the sword; at the same
time it saw to it that the family lands and goods all stayed within the
family, that the children beyond those needed to continue the family
joined religious orders, and that those who took up either robe or sword
married well. This was a noble family, carefully built and maintained,

Introduction

depending on no single notion of honor or prosperity. Montesquieu
was to write to his son, “You are of the robe or the sword. It is up to you
to choose when you have to answer as to your estate” (i Oeuvres , vol. 2,
Pensees 5(69)).

Montesquieu’s uncle, his father’s oldest brother, became Baron de
Montesquieu and President a Mortier, but he had no surviving
children. Montesquieu’s father, a younger son, took up arms as a
profession, finally fighting the Turks in Hungary, where “he must have
been somewhat well regarded,” said Montesquieu, “because, when I
was in Vienna, I still found former officers who remembered having
seen him” ( Oeuvres , vol. 3, p. 1564). When Montesquieu’s father
returned to Bordeaux, he married a rich noblewoman, who inherited
the barony of La Brede, as well as many debts that he spent much of the
rest of his life retiring. His three other brothers became ecclesiastics,
and his three sisters, nuns. Our Montesquieu, Charles Louis de
Secondat, stood to inherit both from his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu
and President a Mortier, and his father, the Baron de La Brede,
becoming finally Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brede et de
Montesquieu and President a Mortier of the Parlement of Bordeaux.
Eventually Montesquieu sold the presidence he had inherited from his
uncle, but he remained the careful steward of the family lands.

Montesquieu was bom in 1 689 at La Brede. His early life moved
smoothly toward preparing him for his position both as noble land-
owner and as parliamentary magistrate. His first experiences were of
everyday rural life, and he continued to feel at home on his estates. It is
said that, like Montaigne, he was given a beggar as godfather and spent
his earliest years being cared for in the mill near La Brede. Much later
in his life, he was taken for a worker in his own vineyards by visitors who
addressed him as a peasant and asked him the way to Montesquieu’s
chateau.

At age eleven Montesquieu was sent to the College de Juilly near
Paris, an excellent and aristocratic institution, to begin the education
that was to prepare him for the presidence. There he was given a
thorough grounding in history, both ancient and modern. That educa-
tion seems to have encouraged reading and comparing a wide variety of
sources and keeping notebooks of reflections and of observations on a
variety of topics, habits which Montesquieu maintained from then on.
There is no record of Montesquieu’s time at the College, and
Montesquieu, typically, remarks not upon the academic content of his

Introduction

education, but upon the moral education embedded in the practices of
everyday life of a school which forced a young man “to betray his
comrades every day in a hundred petty ways” and ruined “the hearts of
all those within” ( Oeuvres , vol. 2, Pensees 2 1 8 (1758)). After graduating,
Montesquieu was sent to study law at the University of Bordeaux,
taking a licentiate after three years. He then returned to Paris,
continuing his study of law in the courts of Paris, keeping notes as
always. Little is known about this period of his life (1708-13), but he
maintained an acquaintance with Pere Desmolets and Nicholas Freret,
both of whom were probably known to him from College ( Oeuvres , vol.
3, p. 729). He spoke extensively about China with a Chinese visitor,
writing a summary in his notebooks that points toward both the Persian
Letters and The Spirit of the Laws ( Oeuvres , vol. 2, pp. 924-63). In 1713,
just after his father’s death, Montesquieu returned to Bordeaux to take
up his inheritance. He bought himself a place in the parliament as a
counsellor and married a woman who brought considerable lands and
wealth with her. Little is known of her except that she was a practicing
Protestant and the trusted steward of his lands during his absences. In
1716 his uncle died, leaving Montesquieu the family estates and the
presidence a mortier. In three years Montesquieu, now twenty-seven
years old, had become a provincial nobleman of some consequence.

These were very quiet years in the Parlement of Bordeaux; the
ordinary judicial and administrative activities were primary. There
were few moves made to revive and exercise the right of remonstrance,
that is, the right to judge the legality of new laws, and no claim to be in
any way the representatives of the nation, unlike some of the parlia-
ments in the later period closer to the revolution. Montesquieu began
in the court at its lowest rank, as a counsellor in the criminal court, and
moved up as far as the senior president in that court. He served as the
commissioner of prisons, was one of the counsellors charged with
overseeing the assignment of those condemned to the galleys, and
could not have avoided participating in interrogations that relied upon
torture. His activities were always as a member of a panel of judges.
The chief issues in the parliament in those years had to do with the
complicated rules of precedence, both as they applied to relations
between counsellors and presidents, and in respect to the disregard of
those same rules by the governor of the region, the Marechal Berwick,
who was to become a life-long friend of Montesquieu’s. Mon-

xiv

Introduction

tesquieu’s attendance in the sessions, never among the best, became so
infrequent after the publication of the Persian Letters in 172 1 that there
appear even to have been murmurs of discontent in the parliament.
When Montesquieu sold the life interest in his presidence in 1728, his
friend the President Barbot tried to persuade him to remain by arguing
that, although the work was not pleasant, it was routine and easy, that it
“scarcely distracts you from your other occupations or amusements”
{Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 819). Montesquieu answered that not the questions
but the proceedings were incomprehensible to him and that it was
tiresome “to see fools in possession of the very talent that fled me, so to
speak” ( Oeuvres , vol. 2, Pensees 213(4)). There is no suggestion on
either man’s part that the parliament could be anything more than a law
court and a job.

As a great landowner, Montesquieu took care to maintain his
customary rights and to increase his land-holding. He was constantly
involved in complicated legal actions and in buying land near his own.
He\advised his daughter to invest her money in land and that legal
actions were a part of being a great lady with much land {Oeuvres, vol. 3,
pp. 1271, 1344). But Montesquieu was a modern farmer concerned
with the market for his goods as well as a nobleman collecting his feudal
goods. He was concerned with his vines, his wine, and the course of
international trade in wine. In 1727 he found himself in conflict with
the Intendant, writing a memorandum arguing that he knew best what
to do with his land and wine, and objecting to the controls on
production and export. The Intendant responded in a note to his
superior with scorn for the excessive cleverness of the enlightened
landowner {Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 264). Here the nobleman’s presumption
of independence, even while defending economic freedoms, runs
against the planning, and even the egalitarianism, of the king’s servant.
When the market for his wine collapsed, largely because wars made it
impossible to ship it to England, he stayed in La Brede and did not
spend his customary time in Paris. Thus, he wrote in 1742, “But I am
afraid that if jhe war continues I shall be forced to go and plant
cabbages at La Brede. In Guyenne, our commerce will soon be on its
last legs; our wine will be left on our hands, and you know that it is our
entire wealth” {Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 1017). In sum, in a letter to a woman
friend in Paris from La Brede, he wrote, “I hear people talk of nothing
but grapevines, hard times, and lawsuits, and fortunately I am fool

xv

Introduction

enough to enjoy all that, that is, to be interested in it” ( Oeuvres , vol. 3,
p. 1383). He did not conduct his life as a man of letters at the expense of
his life as a landowner.

Montesquieu followed the family tradition in his arrangements for
his children and estates. He educated his son to take over the presidence
when it returned to his family upon the death of the man to whom he
had sold his life -interest. Although his son briefly became a counsellor,
he wanted to be a naturalist and refused to take up the presidence, which
Montesquieu subsequently sold altogether. When it became clear to
Montesquieu that his son was not likely to have any children, he
married his daughter Denise to a distant cousin, Godefroy de
Secondat, and arranged for the bulk of the estate to go to her children
so that it would stay in the family.

The man of letters

In 1715, soon after returning to Bordeaux to take up the life of a
provincial nobleman, Montesquieu was elected to the Academy of
Bordeaux and remained active in it for the rest of his life, becoming its
mainstay and its connection to Paris. The provincial academies offered
a protected institutional environment in which the urban, educated
nobles, the clergy, and the members of the third estate met to conduct
altogether secular discussions of scientific, moral, and literary ques-
tions. Papers were presented and discussed by the members of the
Academy. Montesquieu reported primarily on scientific observations,
but his discontent with this science is illustrated by his remarks that
“these systems” are “no sooner set up than they are overthrown”
0 Oeuvres , vol. 3, p. 52). He also offered a number of papers on social
practices in other countries and times, and on duties and natural law,
contrasting the performance of duties in accordance with natural law to
a totally disordered pursuit of the desire of the moment. In one of the
sections that remains from the Traite des devoirs , which Montesquieu
never finished for publication, he again follows the traditional formula,
saying that the monarchy is based on the spirit of obedience ( Oeuvres ,
vol. 3, p. 169). This last comment indicates the distance his thought
was to travel before he wrote The Spirit of the Laws, where honor is said
to be the principle of action in a monarchy.

In 172 1 Montesquieu published the Persian Letters anonymously and
began to move increasingly in Parisian and European literary society.

xvi

Introduction

The Persian Letters purport to be letters by two Persian gentlemen
visiting Europe from 1710 to 1720 written to their friends, to each
other, to a miscellany of other figures, and to and from the harem of the
protagonist, Usbek. As they set out, Usbek praises sincerity and claims
that his troubles in Persia began with his decision to speak honestly to
the king. In response to a request from his friends in Persia to remind
them of their conversations about virtue, he writes the story of the
Troglodytes, whose inclination to help each other became an inclina-
tion to follow their own desires, or self-interest, until all but one
virtuous family had died. Their morality remained a consequence of
inclinations, not of contemplation. The central portion of the Persian
Letters offers a cool dissection of the foibles of eighteenth -century,
particularly French, society and politics. In the last series of letters
Usbek reacts increasingly despotically to his wives’ evasion of their
confinement, of their enforced virtue. As a charming and pointed
commentary on French mores, the book is part of the long tradition of
writing by French moralists, often particularly reminiscent of La
Bruyere’s Caract'eres . But in its concluding pages Montesquieu under-
mines the position of the moralist, the observer, through his descrip-
tion of the collapse of the harem and the violence of Usbek’s response.
This conclusion gives the book its peculiar allure, makes it into a
puzzle, and points away from the moralizing works of his youth.

From 1721 to 1728, Montesquieu’s visits to Paris became longer
and more frequent. He became a part of court society, devoting himself
to various ladies and offering no disapproval of the morals of the court.
He also became a regular in the salon of Mme. Lambert. In this salon,
as in the others that Montesquieu was to attend when he returned to
Paris after 1733, conversation was based not on rank and manners, but
upon character, wit, and knowledge. Montesquieu seems also to have
attended the Club de l’Entresol, where those invited often had
particular expertise; each session was formally divided into a time for
general discussion of government and international events and a time
when a paper was read and considered. The chief concern behind
these discussions seems to have been both the histoiy and the reform of
institutions. Boulainviiliers, whose work Montesquieu discusses
extensively in Book 30 of The Spirit of the Laws, had attended this club,
as did the Abbe de Saint Pierre and Bolingbroke. It was suppressed by
the government, as was another such club that Montesquieu attended;
Montesquieu saw the dissolution of these kinds of little free academies

Introduction

as a real loss for men of letters ( Oeuvres , vol. 3, pp. 1343-1344). He
seems to have taken advantage of social environs in which the rules and
hierarchy of the absolute monarchy were not enforced. In 1728, he
arranged to become a member of the French Academy with the help of
his friends and what must have been a politic interview with Cardinal
Fleury, the First Minister of Louis XV. He was not to become an active
member of that academy until he resumed his regular visits to Paris
after his European tour.

Those of Montesquieu’s writings that seem to have been directed to
this Parisian audience portray exotic settings, pretty women, harmless
adventure, and Roman virtue. Only Rousseau took offence, saying of
one such piece, “If, for example, there is any moral purpose in the
Temple de Gnide it is thoroughly obfuscated and spoiled by the
voluptuous details and lascivious images. What has the author done to
cover it with a gloss of modesty? He has pretended that this work was
the translation of a Greek manuscript and has fashioned the story about
the discovery of this manuscript in the manner most likely to persuade
his readers of the truth of his tale. . . . But who has thought to accuse
the author of a crime for this lie or to call him a deceiver for it?”
(Rousseau, Reveries (New York, 1982), p. 49). The only paper of
Montesquieu’s found in the files of the Club de l’Entresol is the
Dialogue de Sylla et d’Eucrate, but its only imaginable connection with
the interests of the club is the criticism Montesquieu implies by joining
Sulla’s noble -sounding talk of social reform with his great violence and
self-delusion.

The author of The Spirit of the Lam

Montesquieu set forth on an extended trip in 1728, traveling primarily
to Italy and England, and he did not return to La Brede until 1731,
when he began the work that led directly to writing The Spirit of the
Laws. What precisely, if anything, Montesquieu originally expected
from this tour is not clear. He might already have had the writing of
The Spirit of the Laws in mind. In 1747 he wrote in his Preface that
he had discovered his principles twenty years previously, that is,
before setting out. There is no direct evidence for this, but parts of
Book 3 on the principles of governments have been identified as among
the first written in the only existing manuscript ( Oeuvres , vol. 3, pp.
567-576). In addition, there is also some evidence that at the beginning

Introduction

of his trip Montesquieu harbored the idea of employment in foreign
affairs.

Montesquieu’s first lengthy stop on his trip was in Vienna. There he
began to keep a diary of his journey; he kept notes on and recorded his
impressions of the art objects, personalities, and governments he
encountered, and he kept reminders of books to be bought or people to
see. The journal still exists for the trip to Italy and Germany, but not for
the trip to England. In Vienna, he met Prince Eugene of Savoy and
spent time with his circle, which was notorious for its so-called
libertines and free-thinkers. In Venice, his next major stop, he sought
out Antonio Conti, a churchman and one of the most effective
popularizers of Newton’s theories in Italy. Conti was in close contact
with the circle of Prince Eugene and with the leading scientists and
scholars of Italy. Conti, in turn, gave Montesquieu letters of introduc-
tion to the leading biologists of northern Italy and to the scholars
Ludovico Muratori, a literary critic and historian of the Italian Middle
Ages, and Scipione Maffei, a dramatist and classicist. In Naples
Montesquieu was led to converse with Costantino Grimaldi, an aged
jurist known for his defenses of Cartesian philosophy and his advocacy
of the priority of civil over ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Montesquieu’s
interests in Italy seem to have been in modem thought rather than
ancient history.

Montesquieu spent two years in England. This was the England of
George II, whom Montesquieu first met in Hanover; of Swift, Defoe,
Pope, and of bitter, violent public discussion and satire; where the
Whig, Walpole, was the king’s minister and the Tory, Bolingbroke,
defended Parliament against what was called corruption, that is the
influence of the king and his minister. British political freedom
attracted visiting Frenchmen, whereas the disorder of its public debate
was upsetting to them. Montesquieu’s interests in England seem to
have been primarily political; he was acquainted with figures on all
sides of the issues and with the court, and he observed Parliament in
action. In England he found what was scarcely imaginable in France - a
politics where the question was the proper understanding of the
relation, or balance, between the representative Parliament and the
king, or the king’s minister, and the reigning issue was the constitu-
tional propriety of the actions of the king and Parliament.

Montesquieu’s famous description of English politics and of the
possibility of a government based on separated and balanced powers

xix

Introduction

has its source in his observation of this government. His assessment in
The Spirit of the Laws of the way the balance operated is carefully neutral
between Walpole, who controlled Parliament through his patronage,
and Bolingbroke, who disapproved of the minister’s invasion of the
independence of Parliament: “And, as the executive power, which has
all the posts at its disposal, could furnish great expectations but not
fears, all those who would obtain something from it would be inclined
to move to that side, and it could be attacked by all those who could
expect nothing from it” ( Spirit of the Laws , 19.27). For the English
balance of power to work, people must be able to move between
allegiance to the executive and the legislature. The posts available to
the executive make that possible.

The years between 1731, when he returned to France, and 1748,
when The Spirit of the Laws was finished, were occupied with the serious
and extensive reading and writing required to produce first his Con-
siderations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline
and then The Spirit of the Laws. The quality of Montesquieu’s scholar-
ship has been a perennial question. Shackleton has traced evidence of
Montesquieu’s extensive reading in his Pensees, notebooks, and
journals. The search for sources of his thought is handicapped,
however, by an excess of evidence. He seems to have read everything.
In The Spirit of the Laws , Montesquieu cites some 300 works in over
3,000 references. Muriel Dodds had located many of Montesquieu’s
references to the travel literature. Iris Cox has investigated the works
cited in his analysis of French law, concluding that Montesquieu used
the best sources available to him, critically and with judgment. In our
experience, if one is attentive to the point Montesquieu is trying to
make, and to the possibility of irony, his use of his sources is plausible
and responsible.

Montesquieu’s life showed little external change during the seven
years he lived after his great work was completed; he continued to travel
between La Brede and Paris, to care for his family and estates, and to
visit with his friends in the “republic of letters.” He wrote the Defense de
Vesprit des lois, tried to keep his work from being censored by the
Sorbonne and from being put on the Index, and wrote an article, “Du
gout,” for the Encyclopedia. In 1755, he died of a fever in Paris,
confessing and taking communion, but without surrendering his
papers to the priest.

xx

Introduction

The Spirit of the Laws and its reception

The Spirit of the Laws, in spite of Montesquieu’s request to the contrary,
has been read piecemeal. As in his life, Montesquieu did not seem to
require any clear, overt, organizing device. The best analogy for the
book is the complex mosaic and embroidery of the eighteenth century,
or even rococo painting. Although there is no over- arching, organizing
image, there are similarities and contrasts that send the viewer, or
reader, across the painting, or through the book. The elements that
have attracted the attention of those who have read and thought about
Montesquieu are: the law and the spirit of the law; the division of
governments into republics, monarchies, and despotisms; the notion of
a free government of divided and balanced powers, and the examina-
tion of the conditions of the existence of such a government; and the
distinction between moderate and despotic government. Here, I can
give only a brief notion of the standing and ramifications of each notion
and point out the thinkers who have responded to each.

Montesquieu begins the book with the distinction between the law
and the spirit of the law. He refuses in effect to use the great organizing
principle of his predecessors, the natural law - however it was
understood. As a legal principle, the spirit points away from an
assessment of individual laws in terms of some universal principle and
toward some particular, unifying principle. In Book 28 Montesquieu
takes up the question of the development of civil law in France from the
time of the conquest by the Germanic tribes through the reign of Saint
Louis and then forward to Charles VII. This is the kind of material that
seems to validate the claim of the Enlightenment that the “Middle
Ages” were a period of senseless barbarism. But Montesquieu finds a
kind of order in them: “One will perhaps be curious to see the
monstrous usage of judicial combat reduced to principles and to find
the body of so singular a jurisprudence. Men who are fundamentally
reasonable place even their prejudices under rules. Nothing was more
contrary to common sense than judicial combat, but once this point was
granted, it was executed with a certain prudence” (28.23). Later, he
speaks of the spirit of a warrior nation governed solely by the point of
honor (28.27). The problem in approaching Montesquieu from this
point of view has always been in ascertaining the kind of thing the spirit
of a government, or country, is - natural, political, or even divine?

Montesquieu does offer a typology of government, presenting the

xxi

Introduction

reader with the distinction between monarchies, despotisms, and
republics. He distinguishes between the nature of a government, its
source of rule, and its principle, the passions that keep it going. This
permits him to make a distinction between monarchy and despotism;
both are ruled by one person, but in the first the honor of political men
ensures the rule of law and in the second the fear of the prince is
virtually the only passion. In monarchies, there is a complicated, even
confusing, hierarchy of institutions; in despotisms, there is only the
prince, or his agent, and everyone else. Everyone is a slave, and in effect
the slave of the prince, who in turn is the slave of his passions. Thus,
Montesquieu claims that, because of the complex of institutions that do
or do not support it, the same source of rule can be exercised in such
different ways that the governments must be said to be different. This
notion that the kinds of governments are a consequence of the way rule
is exercised, which in turn is due to the entire complex of political and
social groupings and institutions, marks a new way of viewing govern-
ment, which is identified by Durkheim and Raymond Aron as the
beginning of sociology, although they express their distress at Mon-
tesquieu’s continued use of political categories.

However, his first readers in France did not follow him. Dupin
explicitly objected to this distinction between despotism and
monarchy, claiming, as is traditional, that the form of a government
determines its end and the way its people act. He was further horrified
that it was not the spirit of submission but a monstrous, odious, and
false notion of a monarchy based on honor that was put forward.
Voltaire objected that Montesquieu’s distinctions among governments,
particularly the one between monarchy and despotism, were not
accurately drawn. They were, he claimed, based on inaccurate infor-
mation, on mere stories. His view that Montesquieu used his sources
uncritically became a commonplace.

In the first eight books, Montesquieu presents a moderate, or
regular and law-abiding, monarchy. However, the intermediate powers
that make it a monarchy resemble those of the French - a military
nobility of the sword, a parliamentary nobility of the robe, and a clergy.
The suggestion then, is that the moderation of the French monarchy
was a consquence of its intermediate powers. During both the religious
wars of the sixteenth century and the wars of the Fronde of the
seventeenth, the institutions independent of the king defended their
place in the monarchy. The parliaments pushed their claim to assess

Introduction

the appropriateness of new laws issued by the king. Claude de Seyssel
in La Monarchic de France pictured a monarchy held in check by the
brakes or reins on the king of religion, justice, and the police (the
everyday life and habits of a people). But Montesquieu’s notion is that
the political bodies create ways of acting and thinking, that in a
monarchy, for example, honor channels and regularizes the actions of a
king. It does so because each noble conceives of himself as a separately
responsible political actor, however unfortunate his notion of honor
may be. Politics in this monarchy is no longer the private business of the
king, even of a king who must be advised and sometimes curbed.

Montesquieu offers an explicit discussion of the history and revolu-
tions of the French monarchy in Books 30 and 31, and thus concludes
his text with a discussion of the actual condition of France. Here he
joins the argument over what the constitution of France was or had
been, if indeed it had had, or still had, a constitution. Each of these
visions of the constitution and of its history pointed to a different future
for France, making the discussion of the status of its constitution in
effect a discussion of the possibilities for change in France. Here one
can see the beginning of the discussion that led directly to the French
Revolution.

An informed historical argument had become possible because the
laws of the Germanic tribes and the practices of the Merovingians and
Carolingians as well as the Capetians and the Valois had been
published and edited during the seventeenth century. Henri de
Boulainvilliers argued that the Frankish king and his nobles conquered
Gaul and ruled it together as conquerors, but that this noble rule had
dissolved into despotism. Jean-Baptiste Dubos argued that Clovis, the
Frankish king, took the place of the Roman emperor and ruled Franks
and Romans alike, creating a pattern followed by the contemporary
monarch. Montesquieu argued that there were distinctions among
both the Franks and the Romans that were worked into the law and
practice of a new kingdom in a number of different ways. In each case,
the question was the shape or constitution of the monarchy, that is of
the relation between the king and the other political bodies, which
could be identified by a consistent historical practice or development.
The variety of possible constitutions and revolutions over the course of
French history makes the very existence of any French constitution
problematic. Later Mably claimed that there had been no consistent
relation between the parts of the monarchy: in effect, that there had

Introduction

been no constitution for the monarchy. He makes both the king and the
nobility usurpers at different times, and in so doing he takes Mon-
tesquieu’s intermediate position one step further and makes an alto-
gether new start more plausible.

Marat, in 1785, offered a formal eloge of Montesquieu which praises
his “delicate satire,” while attributing to him the outrage that was to
fuel the revolution. He wrote, “he was the first among us to carry the
torch of philosophy into legislation, to avenge outraged humanity, to
defend its rights, and in a way, to become the legislator for the whole
world.” Montesquieu’s own willingness to offer thoughts about legisla-
tion to the public, rather than to the king, as was proper in the absolute
monarchy, is taken by Marat as a model not only for statesmen but for
everyone.

Republics, in addition to monarchies and despotisms, are the topic
for the first eight books. These governments, small, pagan, and based
on slavery, seemed to offer little to eighteenth-century France, but the
image of political virtue had great charm in spite of Montesquieu’s
characterization of the environment that a republic required. He
claimed that republics were based on virtue as a principle, understood
as love of country. They were maintained by a whole way of life that
established equality among the citizens and left them little or nothing
other than that country to love or identify with. Put this way, the virtue
of Montesquieu’s republican government and the virtue celebrated by
Rousseau bear a remarkable resemblance. (Rousseau was the secretary
to Mme. Dupin when she and her husband, the Fermier General,
wrote, published, and withdrew from publication the first critical
assessment of The Spirit of the Laws) In each case the passions that
could be invested in an individual’s well-being are directed toward that
of the society as a whole; virtue is that single-minded devotion to
country.

In the United States, Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists took
seriously Montesquieu’s account of the social conditions that make
republican government possible. In arguing that Americans ought not
to take up manufacturing, Jefferson wrote, “It [corruption] is the mark
set on those, who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and
industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it
on casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets sub-
servience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit
tools for the designs of ambition” (Jefferson, Notes on Virginia (New

xxiv

Introduction

York, 1964), p. 157). The Anti-Federalists worried constantly that the
proposed new U.S. Constitution did not encourage civic virtue, that it
both ignored the question of virtue and set up conditions, such as large
size, complex representation, and encouragement of commerce, that
positively discouraged the development of such virtue.

In addition to the paradigms of republics, monarchies, and despot-
isms, Montesquieu offered the model of a government whose end was
political liberty, the English government of his time (1 1.6; 19.27). His
analysis of that liberty and that government affected the way both
Englishmen and Americans came to think of their political institutions
and of the social and economic underpinnings of those institutions.
According to Montesquieu, political liberty is the result of the separa-
tion of powers. In England, the orders of the old regime, commons,
lords, and king, each take up a function in the new division of rule into
legislative and executive functions, with the judicial function set aside
in juries. The functions of government are not entirely separated, as
each branch participates to some extent in the task of the others,
making the balance a result of an interaction between the branches.
However, the question remains of the separation of the three orders.
That is, does the king properly have some part in the choice of
members of Parliament? Is the king, or his minister in Parliament, the
executive, and what is the meaning of that term? Is it proper to dilute
the old nobility by creating new nobles? Montesquieu is quoted
approvingly by both Blackstone and Burke. Blackstone defends the
separation of powers in their sources, while Burke is quite willing to
find reasons for all the ways of electing members of Parliament that
made it possible for the executive to have some control over them. Still,
for Blackstone and Burke, as for Montesquieu, the structure of the
government itself, not some appeal to first principles, is the defense of
liberty.

In France, during and after the French Revolution, Montesquieu’s
concern to balance power led to the question of whether there
remained any independent political body, king, or noble, that could be
used to moderate the sovereignty of the people. Burke, a careful
student of Montesquieu, berated the French in his Reflections on the
Revolution in France for not attaching themselves to the institutions of
their old regime, as the English had. Tocqueville replied that those
institutions were no longer viable in France. Using Montesquieu’s
analysis of monarchy, he offered the argument that the loss of

xxv

Introduction

this criticism of the absolute monarchy was more influential than
Montesquieu’s analysis of the moderate monarchy. In Democracy in
America , Tocqueville seems to have patterned his despotic democracy
after Montesquieu’s despotic king. But there the character of the ruler
and the people became identical, leading to a new quiet, calm despot-
ism. Tocqueville suspected that Madison’s infinitely divided, shapeless
population was inherently despotic and that the formal governmental
institutions of the Federal government and even of the state govern-
ments could not teach the use of political freedom. Rather he sought
out the equivalent of Montesquieu’s intermediate institutions within
the society, finding local governments, voluntary associations, and
religious and familial habits and practices that shaped free democratic
politics.

In turning his attention to the principles of a variety of governments
and to the social, economic, and historical foundations of each,
Montesquieu turned his readers away from the consideration of
political right and toward an analysis of how to make particular
governments work. Readers were directed to think of the possibilities —
to become a small republic like those of the ancients, a monarchy with
ranks and orders, a free government of divided powers, or a despotism
of one or many. Each government, other than the despotisms, is a
particular arrangement of equalities and inequalities. Montesquieu’s
thought has been most carefully attended to by those who, like the
members of the provincial French academies of his time, tried to use
institutional structures to work out a balance. Montesquieu’s perspi-
cacity about the possibilities for such balances and the reasons they are
essential for any decent politics has made and continues to make him
worth reading.

Anne M. Cohler
Chicago , Illinois

xxviii

Principal events in Montesquieu’s life

1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the end of French toleration
for Protestantism.

1688 Glorious revolution in England.

1689 Montesquieu was bom, January 18, at the Chateau of La
Brede.

1700 Montesquieu went to College de Juilly.

1708 Montesquieu studied law in Bordeaux and Paris.

1713 The Papal Bull Unigenitus was promulgated condemning some
propositions from P. Quesnel’s Reflexions morales , and thus
supporting the Jesuits at the expense of the Jansenists.

1714 Montesquieu became a Counsellor in the Parlement of
Bordeaux.

1715 Montesquieu married Jeanne Lartique, a Protestant; they had
three children.

Louis XIV died.

1716 Montesquieu became a member of the Academy of Bordeaux
and, when his uncle died, inherited the barony of Montesquieu
and became President a Mortier in the Parlement of Bordeaux.

1721 The Persian Letters was published, anonymously.

1725 Montesquieu published Le Temple de Gnide , anonymously, and
sold a life interest in his presidence.

1728 Montesquieu was elected to the French Academy and set out on
trip to Germany, Italy, and England.

1729 Montesquieu traveled to England.

173 1 Montesquieu returned to France.

xxix

Principal events in Montesquieu ’s life

1734 Publication of the Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of
the Romans and their Decline.

1747 Montesquieu’s son refused to take up the Presidence and it was
sold altogether.

1 748 Publication of The Spirit of the Laws.

1750 Publication of the Defense de Vesprit des lois.

Thomas Nugent published an English translation of The Spirit of
the Laws.

175 1-1765 Diderot and d’Alembert edit the Encyclopedia.

1751 The Spirit of the Laws was put on the Index.

Rousseau published the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences.

1754 Montesquieu wrote the Essay on Taste, which appeared in the
Encyclopedia.

Rousseau published the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.

1 755 Montesquieu died in Paris of a fever.

1757 A new, revised edition of The Spirit of the Laws was published
under the direction of Montesquieu’s son from notes left by
Montesquieu at his death.

1771 Maupeou dissolved the parlements and substituted another
system of courts, whose members were to be appointed. The
parlements were reestablished when Louis XVI became king in
1774. This is often used as a date to mark the beginning of the
pre-revolutionary thrust in French history.

XXX

Bibliographical note

For a general introduction to eighteenth-century France, Alfred
Cobban, A History of Modem France , vol. i and The Old Regime and the
French Revolution., ed. Keith Michael Baker, vol. 7 of Readings in Western
Civilization (Chicago, 1987) serve admirably. William Doyle, The
Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime (New York, 1974)
and Daniel Roche, Le Siecle des lumi'eres en Province (Paris, 1978)
provide a picture of provincial life before the revolution. The collected
essays in The Political Culture of the Old Regime , ed. Keith Michael Baker
(Oxford, 1987) give an idea of contemporary historians’ assessment of
this period. The references are extremely useful.

The standard reference for Montesquieu’s biography is Robert
Shackleton, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1961). Jean Starobinski’s little book
Montesquieu (Paris, 1979) collects the autobiographical information
and has wonderful pictures. Judith N. Shklar, Montesquieu (Oxford,
1987) presents yet another version of Montesquieu’s personality and
work. Jean Dalat, Montesquieu magistrat, Archives des lettres modemes, ns.
132, 139 and Jean Dalat , Montesquieu, chef defamille. Archives des lettres
modemes , n. 217, give a closer view of Montesquieu’s actual activities
than was previously available.

Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton,
1980), sees Montesquieu in the light of earlier French constitutionalist
thought. Franklin Ford, Robe and Sword (New York, 1965) identifies
Montesquieu with the parliamentary revolt, and A. Lloyd Moote, The
Revolt of the fudges, the Parlement of Paris and the Fronde, 1643-1652
(Princeton, 1971) gives a good notion of the way the parliamentarians
thought. E. Carcassone, Montesquieu et le probleme de la constitution

Bibliographical note

franqaise au XVIIIe si'ecle (Paris, 1927) places Montesquieu within
eighteenth -century constitutionalism.

H. Roddier, “De la composition deLEsprit des Lois'. Montesquieu et
les Oratorien de L’Academie de Juilly,” Revue d’histoire litteraire de la
France, 52 (1952) connects Montesquieu’s use of historical sources to
the way he was taught. The essays in the Oeuvres completes de Mon-
tesquieu (Paris, 1950-1954) are also useful. There are three books
which take particular topics and try and assess Montesquieu’s use of
his sources: Iris Cox, Montesquieu and the History of French Lam
(Oxford, 1 983); Muriel Dodds, Les Recits de voyages: sources de L Esprit
des lois de Montesquieu (Paris, 1929); and Catherine Volpilhac-Auger,
Tacite et Montesquieu (Oxford, 1985). Franqois Furet and Mona Ouzuf,
“Two Historical Legitimations of Eighteenth-Century French
Society: Mably and Boulainvilliers,” in Franqois Furet, In the Workshop
of History (Chicago, 1985) helps place the final historical chapters in
context.

For accounts of Montesquieu and English politics see: J. Dedieu,
Montesquieu et la tradition anglaise en France (Paris, 1909); F. T. H.
Fletcher, Montesquieu and English Politics (Philadelphia, 1 980, reprint
of 1939 edn);John Plamenatz,Afa« and Society (Harlow, Essex, 1963),
vol. 1, pp. 284-291; and C. P. Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke
(Oxford, 1963).

Emile Durkheim, Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology
(Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1965); Raymond Aron, “Montesquieu,” in
Main Currents in Sociological Thought (New York, 1965), pp. 11-56;
Louis Althusser, Politics and History (London, 1972), pp. 12-109; an d
Henry J. Merry, Montesquieu’s System of Natural Government (W.
Lafayette, Indiana, 1970) take Montesquieu as the beginning of
modern sociology and history. For David Carrithers, in “Mon-
tesquieu’s Philosophy of History,” Journal of History of Ideas (1986),
pp. 61-80 the question is the way Montesquieu looked for underlying
causes in history. Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests
(Princeton, N.J., 1977), pp. 70-80 connects Montesquieu to the
development of economic thought.

Destutt de Tracey,/! Commentary and Review of Montesquieu ’$ “ Spirit
of the Laws”, tr. Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1969, reprinted from
1 81 1 edn), Mark Waddicor, Montesquieu and the Philosophy of Natural
Law (The Hague, 1970), and Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu ’s Philo-
sophy of Liberalism (Chicago, 1974) have placed Montesquieu’s book

xxxii

Bibliographical note

within the tradition of natural law, or right, as they understand it. For
an assessment see Bernard Manin, “Montesquieu et la politique
modeme,” Cahiers de Philosophic Politique , n. 2-3, and Michael A.
Mosher, “The Particulars of a Universal Politics: Hegel’s Adaptation
of Montesquieu’s Typology,” American Political Science Review (1984),
pp. 179-188.

Another approach explores the patterns of overlapping categories
and concerns: Georges Benrekassa, Montesquieu (Paris, 1968); Anne
M. Cohler, Montesquieu ’s Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American
Constitutionalism (Kansas, 1988); Suzanne Gearhart, The Open Boun-
dary of History and Fiction (Princeton, 1 984); Bernard Groethuysen,
Philosophic de la Revolution Franqaise precede de Montesquieu (Paris,
1956); Mark Hulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime (Berkeley,
California, 1976); Catherine Larrere, “Les Typologies des govern-
ments chez Montesquieu,” in Etudes sur le XVIIIe Siecle (Clermont,
1 979); Jacques Proust, L’Objet et le texte, pour une poetique de la prose
franqaise du XVIIIe siecle (Geneve, 1980); Paul Verniere, Montesquieu et
Tesprit des lois ou la Raison impure (Paris, 1977).

xxxiii

Translators’ preface

The Spirit of the Laws offers a genial surface that carries the reader from
one idea to the next; its array of paradoxes, anecdotes, metaphors, witty
phrases and saillies, which leads the reader deeper into the text, also
amuses. As much as possible of this civilized surface with its light
touches is retained here, permitting Montesquieu to help the reader
even through the English translation. In Montesquieu’s apparent
digressions the reader often finds echoes or applications of general
principles Montesquieu has already enunciated, sometimes several
hundred pages earlier. With this in mind, we have, as often as
practicable, chosen the language of each part of the translation in terms
of the entire book rather than in terms of the more limited context of
the paragraph or chapter. This results in a stabilized core of
terminology, which conveys some of the resonance of the original text.

Although in the Foreword to the Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu says
that he has had to find new words or give new meanings to old ones, it is
the conservatism of his vocabulary that is striking. Though he plays
with the varied meanings of vertu, “virtue,’ 'principe, “principle,” esprit,
“spirit,” and constitution, “constitution,” he does so against a back-
ground of rigorously correct French usage. In Considerations on the
Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, Sainte-Beuve
observes that Montesquieu “excels in returning expressions to all their
primitive strength, which permits his style to be both succinct and
strong, and to appear simple.” Accordingly, we have respected Mon-
tesquieu’s use of various distinctions, for instance between prononcer,
“to pronounce,” and statuer, “to enact,” between peine, “penalty,” and
supplice, “punishment,” between ville, “town,” and cite, “city.”

XXXIV

Translators ’ preface

The greatest problems for the translators were presented by those
French words whose broad meaning is not easily rendered into modem
English. We have had to translate affaires as “business,” “public
business,” “affairs,” “public affairs,” and even “suits” and “law suits;”
but we have been able to maintain biens as “goods.” We use “right” for
droit , “law” for loi, and “money” for monnaie, all terms whose meanings
have changed over time and have been the subject of much discussion.
The translators’ notes are largely concerned with these problems.

Montesquieu’s discussion of feudal law raises the additional ques-
tion of the difference between feudal French and feudal English
institutions. Once the threshold of simple equivalents is passed with
seigneur, “lord,” comte, “county,” and prince, “prince,” modem English
words tend to be inseparable from the English institutions to which
they refer. Such words as fisc, cens, and police, which can be translated as
“exchequer,” “head-tax,” and “administration,” are rendered here by
the more literal, if obsolete, English forms, “fisc,” “census,” and
“police.” The very obsoleteness of the terms will remind the reader
that these institutions and categories differ from the English ones.

Paragraph divisions and virtually all the sentences are divided as they
are in our French text. Where there are curiosities - for example,
capital letters following a colon, or question-marks followed by a
lower-case letter - we have followed the punctuation rather than the
capitalization when possible. Within the sentences we have altered the
punctuation to conform with English usage. We have kept as much of
the structure of the sentences as is compatible with readable English
and have used the first person when it appears in the text.

The first edition of The Spirit of the Laws was published in 1 748
under the supervision of Jacob Vernet in Geneva. In 1749 an edition
was published with some minor revisions and a map. In 1750 another
edition was published with some additional corrections and the division
into six parts that had been left out of the first edition. A version with a
few substantial revisions and a new Author’s Foreword appeared in
1757 as a separate volume and in 1758 as a part of a complete works.
This version was published by Richer under the directions of Mon-
tesquieu’s son from notes for a new edition left at Montesquieu’s death
in 1755 ( Oeuvres , vol. 3, pp. 691-692). For the preparation of this
translation, as there is no critical edition of the Spirit of the Laws, we
used the text of the facsimile edition of the Oeuvres completes of 1758,
Oeuvres completes de Montesquieu , ed. Andre Masson (Paris, Nagel,

xxxv

Translators ’ preface

1950-1955), vol. 1. We have taken the liberty of returning the
Invocation to the Muses, which appears in the Masson edition immedi-
ately following the editor’s introduction, to its original place at the
opening of Book 20, and of reintroducing the division into six parts.

The only other translation of the entire book, by Thomas Nugent,
was first published in 1750. Although it was based on the first edition,
some of the later changes were incorporated in later editions of the
translation. We have profited from Nugent’s grasp of eighteenth-
century French and have been immensely grateful to have had a
predecessor with whom we could argue.

Montesquieu’s text also contains some 2,000 footnotes. It has
seemed appropriate to present his documentation in a format acces-
sible to the modem reader. Our aim has been to make it possible for the
specialist and non -specialist alike to evaluate Montesquieu’s use of
evidence. Montesquieu’s references can be grouped under four
general headings: (1) references to the classical texts of the Greeks and
Romans; (2) to Roman law; (3) to the laws, law codes and public
documents of the barbarian tribes and the French monarchy, primarily
in the early Middle Ages; (4) to the travel literature which he consulted
for information about contemporary non-European cultures.

For the first category, whereas Montesquieu refers to classical texts
with book and chapter numbers, or with page numbers to editions
which are no longer in print, we have used the present-day standard
form. When a classical text may prove difficult to locate, the specific
edition used is identified; otherwise we have relied on the Oxford,
Loeb, or Teubner edition. For the second, Montesquieu refers to the
laws in the Roman law codes by title. Although this is an efficient and
elegant system of reference, it may put off a reader without Latin. We
have identified, therefore, the name of the law-code and the book, title,
law (imperial rescripts, extracts from the classical jurists), and
paragraph numbers. For the third, while Montesquieu used the best
editions available in his time for citations of the law codes of the
barbarians, and of those of the Middle Ages, these are no longer in
print. They have been superseded by texts prepared under the auspices
of the Monumenta Germaniae historica. References are traced to this
work since these volumes represent the best modern editions. Finally,
in respect to the travel literature, as a number of these works have been
republished in this century, we have used them whenever possible;
otherwise, we have attempted to find the most recent printing.

xxxvi

Translators ’ preface

All information appearing in brackets in the footnotes is that of the
translators. We have preserved the original information of Mon-
tesquieu’s citations, adding full author and title where needed.
Although there are often incongruities between the numbers in Mon-
tesquieu’s citations and those in our own, these differences should not
be interpreted as his errors. They reflect typographical mistakes,
differences in editions, changes in the form of citation, etc. Factual
errors and incorrect citations are indicated. These instances are rare.
Montesquieu was scrupulous about his references.

In earlier editions, many errors in the printing of the documentation
resulted from the confusion, or transposition, of roman and arabic
numerals. Mindful of this, and despite certain traditional forms of
citation, we have used arabic numerals for all the numbers in the notes,
except when roman numerals identify specific pages, as in a preface.

Our additions to the footnotes follow two basic forms. The first is for
classical texts and for works for which there exists a specific standard
form of citation. Each element of the citation - book number, chapter
or title number, sentence or line number - is set off by a period. The
second form of citation is to a particular edition; these citations contain
three elements, each set off by semicolons. The first element contains
information such as book, part, or chapter number, and the title of a
specific section is given where it may be helpful in locating the
information in a different edition. The second element contains
volume and page number, separated by a comma, for the edition cited.
The third and last element identifies the specific edition.

A bibliography follows the translation. When the form of citation
differs from that of the National Union Catalog, the form of the
National Union Catalog main entry appears in parentheses. The
author’s name and the title as they appear in the footnotes correspond
to their form in the Bibliography. Montesquieu gallicized names and
followed the convention of citing all books by a French title, whether or
not the one he used was in French. It is often clear that Montesquieu in
fact was referring to a Latin, and sometimes even to an English,
original.

Evidence cited by Montesquieu in Latin, Italian, and Old French
has been translated; we indicate in brackets the language of the original
when it is not French (e.g. [O.F.], [L.]). Translation of the Medieval
Latin and Old French presents special problems because the meaning
of certain phrases and words remains uncertain. Montesquieu appears

xxxvii

Translators ’ preface

to recognize these difficulties, for he leaves certain phrases in the
original in the footnote while translating the rest into French, or omits
words and phrases when offering a translation in the text of a quotation
in a footnote. Since Montesquieu’s time much substantial scholarship
has grown up around these problems and frequently their interpreta-
tion has remained controversial. In our translations we attempt to find a
middle ground between intelligibility and the real opaqueness of
certain of his citations.

We wish to thank those who have helped us with this project. The
work could not have beerLdone. without the assistance of the staff of the
research collections of the Newberry Library, Regenstein Library of
the University of Chicago, the libraries of Northwestern University,
and the libraries of Harvard University. Both the Bibliotheque
Nationale and the British Library were helpful to visiting strangers.
The ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago has provided us
with periodic reassurance as to our accuracy. We are especially grateful
for the support given Harold Stone by the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the Travel to Collections Program of the Division of
Research Programs, for work on the project of completing the
documentation. We are immensely grateful for the generosity of our
friends in Hyde Park, at the University of Chicago, at Shimer College,
and Colgate University. They have put their learning at our disposal.
Thanks again to Mary Hynes-Berry, Joan Grimbert, and George
Anastaplo. Keith Baker and Charles Grey have invited us to their
seminars and workshops; they, their students, and colleagues have
given us an education in eighteenth-century history. To Keith Baker
we are particularly indebted for the encouragement and assistance that
has brought this project to a successful conclusion. Our friends and
families have been generous enough not to enquire too often when our
project would be completed. We, of course, bear the responsibility for
the final product.

Anne M. Cohler

B asi a C . Miller
Harold S. Stone

xxxviii

Abbreviations

Cass. Dio
CRF
CSHB
Dion. Hal.

Ant. Rom.
FGrH
FIRA
I.

L.

Livy

M.

MGH

Auct.

Epp.

LL.

LL. Form.
LL. Nat.
SS.

SS. Lang.
SS. Merov.
NA

Migne PG
Migne PL
O.F.

Pol.

Vit.

Cassius Dio Cocceianus

Capitularia regum Francorum (part of MGH series)
Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Antiquitates Romanae

F. Jacoby, Fragmenta der greichischen Historiker
S. Riccobono, Fontes iuris Romani Antelustiniani
Italian
Latin

Livy, Ab urbe condita
Montesquieu

Monumenta Germaniae historica
Auctorum antiquissimiorum
Epistolae Karolini aevi
Leges (series in folio)

Legum sectio V. Formulae

Legum sectio /. Leges nationum Germanicarum

Scriptores

Scriptorum rerum Langobardicarum
Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum
Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae
Migne, Patrologiae Cursus, series Graeca
Migne, Patrologiae Cursus, series Latina
Old French
Aristotle, Politics
Plutarch, Vitae parallelae

For an explanation of the abbreviations used with Leges Langobardorum and
Jean Baptiste Du Halde’s Description de VEmpire de la Chine etdela Tartarie
Chinoise consult the entries in the bibliography.

XXXIX

Author’s foreword

In order to understand the first four books of this work, one must note
that what I call virtue in a republic is love of the homeland, that is, love
of equality." It is not a moral virtue or a Christian virtue; it is political
virtue, and this is the spring that makes republican government move,
as honor is the spring that makes monarchy move. Therefore, I have
called love of the homeland and of equality, political virtue. I have had
new ideas; new words have had to be found or new meanings given to
old ones. Those who have not understood this have made me say
absurdities that would be outrageous in every country in the world,
because in every country in the world morality is desired.

2. It should be observed that there is a very great difference between
saying that a certain quality, modification of the soul, or virtue is not the
spring that makes a government act and saying that it is not present in
that government. If I were to say that a certain wheel, a certain gear, is
not the spring that makes this watch move, would one conclude that it is
not present in the watch? Far from excluding moral and Christian
virtues, monarchy does not even exclude political virtue. In a word,
honor is in the republic though political virtue is its spring; political
virtue is in the monarchy though honor is its spring.

Finally, the good man discussed in Book 3, chapter 5, is not the
Christian good man, but the political good man, who has the political
virtue I have mentioned. He is the man who loves the laws of his

in the translators’ notes, references such as 3.4 are
to books and chapters in The Spirit of the Lam.

'The Foreword was first printed in the 1757 edition.

Author's foreword,

country and who acts from love of the laws of his country. I have put all
these matters in a new light in the present edition by further specifying
the ideas, and in most places where I have used the word virtue , I have
written political virtue.

xlii

Preface

If, among the infinite number of things in this book, there is any that,
contrary to my expectations" might give offense, at least there is none
that has been put here with ill intent. By nature, I have not at all a
censorious spirit. Plato thanked heaven that he was born in Socrates’
time, and as for me, I am grateful that heaven had me born in the
government in which I live and that it wanted me to obey those whom it
had me love.

I ask a favor that I fear will not be granted; it is that one not judge by a
moment’s reading the work of twenty years, that one approve or
condemn the book as a whole and not some few sentences. If one wants
to seek the design of the author, one can find it only in the design of the
work.

I began by examining men, and I believed that, amidst the infinite
diversity of laws and mores, they were not led by their fancies alone.

I have set down the principles, and I have seen particular cases
conform to them as if by themselves, the histories of all nations being
but their consequences, and each particular law connecting with
another law or dependent on a more general one.

When I turned to antiquity, I sought to capture its spirit in order not
to consider as similar those cases with real differences or to overlook
differences in those that appear similar.

I did not draw my principles from my prejudices but from the nature
of things.

°In Montesquieu espoir usually implies the concreteness of “expect” more than the
wishfulness of “hope,” so we have translated it consistently as “expect” and
“expectation” rather than “hope” in order to avoid interpreting the standing of the
hope or expectation.

xliii

Preface

Many of the truths will make themselves felt here only when one sees
the chain connecting them with others. The more one reflects on the
details, the more one will feel the certainty of the principles. As for the
details, I have not given them all, for who could say everything without
being tedious?

The sallies 4, that seem to characterize present-day works will not be
found here. As soon as matters are seen from a certain distance, such
sallies vanish; they usually arise only because the mind attaches itself to
a single point and forsakes all others.

I do not write to censure that which is established in any country
whatsoever. Each nation will find here the reasons for its maxims, and
the consequence will naturally be drawn from them that changes can be
proposed only by those who are bom fortunate enough to fathom by a
stroke of genius the whole of a state’s constitution.

It is not a matter of indifference that the people be enlightened. The
prejudices of magistrates began as the prejudices of the nation. In a
time of ignorance, one has no doubts even while doing the greatest
evils; in an enlightened age, one trembles even while doing the greatest
goods. One feels the old abuses and sees their correction, but one also
sees the abuses of the correction itself. One lets an ill remain if one
fears something worse; one lets a good remain if one is in doubt about a
better. One looks at the parts only in order to judge the whole; one
examines all the causes in order to see the results.

If I could make it so that everyone had new reasons for loving his
duties, his prince, his homeland and his laws and that each could better
feel his happiness in his own country, government, and position, I
would consider myself the happiest of mortals.

If I could make it so that those who command increased their
knowledge of what they should prescribe and that those who obey
found a new pleasure in obeying, I would consider myself the happiest
of mortals.

I would consider myself the happiest of mortals if I could make it so
that men were able to cure themselves of their prejudices. Here I call
prejudices not what makes one unaware of certain things but what
makes one unaware of oneself.

By seeking to instruct men one can practice the general virtue that
includes love of all. Man, that flexible being who adapts himself in

b traits saillants. These traits are prominent features, as in architecture, not witticisms.

xliv

Preface

society to the thoughts and impressions of others, is equally capable of
knowing his own nature when it is shown to him, and of losing even the
feeling of it when it is concealed from him.

Many times I began this work and many times abandoned it; a
thousand times I cast to the winds the pages I had written; 1 every day I
felt my paternal hands drop; 2 1 followed my object without forming a
design; I knew neither rules nor exceptions; I found the truth only to
lose it. But when I discovered my principles, all that I had sought came
to me, and in the course of twenty years, I saw my work begin, grow,
move ahead, and end.

If this work meets with success, I shall owe much of it to the majesty
of my subject; still, I do not believe that I have totally lacked genius.
When I have seen what so many great men in France, England, and
Germany have written before me, I have been filled with wonder, but I
have not lost courage. “And I too am a painter,” 3 have I said with
Correggio.

'“A sport to the winds” [L.] [Vergil, Aetteid 6.75].

2 “Twice the paternal hand had fallen” [L.J [Vergil, Aeneid 6.33].

3 “And I too am a painter” [I.]. [An apocryphal remark attributed to Correggio on seeing, in
1515, Raphael’s St. Cecilia ; the story was first published by Sebastiano Resta, a
seventeenth-century Italian writer on art.]

xlv

Ou»«t

Figure i

xlvi

Part 1

jfe dks. dk. & & dtc. dk dk dk dk dk dk ife ife jfe .sfe. .&. dk jfe. jfe .sfe afe dk afe 4fc dk

O OClCtOttCtOOO OOO^OOOO^OOQfpOO^C'OOr?)

BOOK 1

On laws in general

CHAPTER I

On laws in their relation with the various beings

Laws, taken in the broadest meaning, are the necessary relations
deriving from the nature of things; and in this sense, all beings have
their laws: the divinity 1 has its laws, the material world has its laws, the
intelligences superior to man have their laws, the beasts have their laws,
man has his laws.

Those who have said that a blind fate has produced all the effects that we
see in the world have said a great absurdity; for what greater absurdity is
there than a blind fate that could have produced intelligent beings?

There is, then, a primitive ' 1 reason; and laws are both the relations
that exist between it and the different beings, and the relations of these
various beings to each other.

God is related to the universe, as creator and preserver; the laws
according to which he created are those according to which he
preserves; he acts according to these rules because he knows them; he
knows them because he made them; he made them because they are
related to his wisdom* and his power.

As we see that the world, formed by the motion of matter and devoid
of intelligence, still continues to exist, its motions must have invariable
laws; and, if one could imagine another world than this, it would have
consistent' rules or it would be destroyed.

'“The law,” Plutarch says in [Moralia]Adprincipem ineruditum [780c], “is the queen of all,
mortal and immortal.” [Plutarch is quoting Pindar, fragment 169 (151).]

“We have rendered Montesquieu’s primitive as “primitive,” thus retaining the distinc-
tion between that term and premier , “first,” which is used repeatedly in 1.2.

*We have translated sage and its various forms with “wise” and its various forms. The
meaning is generally prudence, calm, sobriety.

'Montesquieu uses constant, constamment , and Constance to refer both to a fixed rule and

3

Part i

Thus creation, which appears to be an arbitrary act, presupposes
rules as invariable as the fate claimed by atheists. It would be absurd to
say that the creator, without these rules, could govern the world, since
the world would not continue to exist without them.

These rules are a consistently established relation. Between one
moving body and another moving body, it is in accord with relations of
mass and velocity that all motions are received, increased, diminished,
or lost; every diversity is uniformity , every change is consistency. d

Particular intelligent beings can have laws that they have made, but
they also have some that they have not made. Before there were
intelligent beings, they were possible; therefore, they had possible
relations and consequently possible laws. Before laws were made, there
were possible relations of justice/ To say that there is nothing just or
unjust but what positive laws ordain or prohibit is to say that before a
circle was drawn, all its radii were not equal.

Therefore, one must admit that there are relations of faimess / prior
to the positive law that establishes them, so that, for example, assuming
that there were societies of men, it would be just to conform to their
laws; so that, if there were intelligent beings that had received some
kindness from another being, they ought to be grateful for it;* so that, if
one intelligent being had created another intelligent being, the created
one ought to remain in its original dependency; so that one intelligent
being who has done harm to another intelligent being deserves the
same harm in return, and so forth.

But the intelligent world is far from being as well governed as the
physical world. For, though the intelligent world also has laws that are
invariable by their nature, unlike the physical world, it does not follow
its laws consistendy. The reason for this is that particular intelligent
beings are limited by their nature and are consequendy subject to error;
furthermore, it is in their nature to act by themselves. Therefore, they

to multiple actions that conform to the rule. We have chosen to translate them by
“consistent” and “consistency,” which have both of these implications.

J Here translating Constance as “consistency” conveys the meaning of changing accord-
ing to a rule, as “constancy” with its static implication would not. See note *, above.

'Here Montesquieu takes advantage of the range of meaning of the Frenchyasfe’, which
includes both the notion of “correct” and that of “just.” It leads him to the arithmetic
notion of justice in the next paragraph.

1 Equite is translated throughout as “fairness,” because it implies a much wider sphere
than the English term “equity” with its almost exclusively legal implications. Here
Montesquieu’s equite reminds the reader of the egal, “equal,” at the end of the
preceding sentence and of the arithmetic relation.

g avoirdela reconnaissance. See 31.33 (note q , bk. 31).

4

On laws in general

do not consistently follow their primitive laws or even always follow the
laws they give themselves.

It is not known whether beasts are governed by the general laws of
motion or by a movement particular to themselves. Be that as it may,
they do not have a more intimate relation with god A than the rest of the
material world has, and feeling is useful to them only in their relation to
one another, either with other particular beings, or with themselves.'

By the attraction of pleasure they preserve their particular being; by
the same attraction they preserve their species. They have natural laws
because they are united by feeling; they have no positive laws because
they are not united by knowledge. Still, they do not invariably follow
their natural laws; plants, in which we observe neither knowledge nor
feeling, better follow their natural laws.

Beasts do not have the supreme advantages that we have; they have
some that we do not have. They do not have our expectations/ but they
do not have our fears; they suffer death as we do, but without
recognizing it; most even preserve themselves better than we do and do
not make such bad use of their passions.

Man, as a physical being, is governed by invariable laws like other
bodies. As an intelligent being, he constantly violates the laws god has
established and changes those he himself establishes; he must guide
himself, and yet he is a limited being; he is subject to ignorance and
error, as are all finite intelligences; he loses even the imperfect
knowledge he has. As a feeling creature, he falls subject to a thousand
passions. Such a being could at any moment forget his creator; god has
called him back to him by the laws of religion. Such a being could at any
moment forget himself; philosophers have reminded him of himself by
the laws of morality. Made for living in society, he could forget his
fellows; legislators have returned him to his duties by political and civil
laws.

^Montesquieu never capitalizes dieu, “god.”

'dans le rapport qu 'dies onl entre dies, ou avecd'autres etres particuliers, ou avec dles-mbnes.

The middle term was added after 1748. This addition suggests that the meaning is
that relations among animals may be either with members of other species or with
other members of their own species.

-'Whether men’s having purposes beyond those of the animals leads to hopes or
expectations is, of course, not clear from the French. (See note “ in Preface.)

5

Part i

CHAPTER 2

On the laws of nature

Prior to all these laws are the laws of nature, so named because they
derive uniquely from the constitution of our being. To know them well,
one must consider a man before the establishment of societies. The
laws he would receive in such a state will be the laws of nature.

The law that impresses on us the idea of a creator and thereby leads
us toward him is the first of the natural lam in importance, though not
first in the order of these laws. A man in the state of nature would have
the faculty of knowing rather than knowledge. It is clear that his first
ideas would not be speculative ones; he would think of the preservation
of his being before seeking the origin of his being. Such a man would at
first feel only his weakness; his timidity would be extreme: and as for
evidence, if it is needed on this point, savages have been found in
forests ; 2 everything makes them tremble, everything makes them flee.

In this state, each feels himself inferior; he scarcely feels himself an
equal. Such men would not seek to attack one another, and peace
would be the first natural law.

Hobbes gives men first the desire to subjugate one another, but this
is not reasonable. The idea of empire and domination is so complex
and depends on so many other ideas, that it would not be the one they
would first have.

Hobbes asks, If men are not naturally in a state of war, why do they
always cany arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors ? k But one
feels that what can happen to men only after the establishment of
societies, which induced them to find motives for attacking others and
for defending themselves, is attributed to them before that
establishment.

Man would add the feeling of his needs to the feeling of his
weakness. Thus another natural law would be the one inspiring him to
seek nourishment.

I have said that fear would lead men to flee one another, but the
marks of mutual fear would soon persuade them to approach one

1 Witness the savage who was found in the forests of Hanover and who lived in England in
the reign of George 1.

*See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, bk. i, chap. 13 .

6

On laws in general

another. They would also be so inclined by the pleasure one animal
feels at the approach of an animal of its own kind. In addition, the
charm that the two sexes inspire in each other by their difference would
increase this pleasure, and the natural entreaty' they always make to one
another would be a third law.

Besides feelings, which belong to men from the outset, they also
succeed in gaining knowledge; thus they have a second bond, which
other animals do not have. Therefore, they have another motive for
uniting, and the desire to live in society is a fourth natural law.

' priere .

CHAPTER 3

On positive laws

As soon as men are in society, they lose their feeling of weakness; the
equality that was among them ceases, and the state of war begins.

Each particular society comes to feel its strength, producing a state
of war among nations. The individuals within each society begin to feel
their strength; they seek to turn their favor the principal advantages of
this society, which brings about a state of war among them.

These two sorts of states of war bring about the establishment of laws
among men. Considered as inhabitants of a planet so large that
different peoples are necessary, they have laws bearing on the relation
that these peoples have with one another, and this is the right of
nations.”* Considered as living in a society that must be maintained,
they have laws concerning the relation between those who govern and
those who are governed, and this is the political right."
Further, they have laws concerning the relation that all citizens have
with one another, and this is the civil right.

The right of nations is by nature founded on the principle that the
various nations should do to one another in times of peace the most
good possible, and in times of war the least ill possible, without harming
their true interests.

le droit des gens is translated “right of nations” throughout.

"We have translated droit as “right” and loi as “law.” Although the French droit is
usually closer to the meaning of “law” in English, we have kept Montesquieu’s usage
so that his distinction and his version of the changes in meaning would not be
obscured.

7

Part i

The object of war is victory; of victory, conquest; of conquest,
preservation. All the laws that form the right of nations should derive
from this principle and the preceding one.

All nations have a right of nations; and even the Iroquois, who eat
their prisoners, have one. They send and receive embassies; they know
rights of war and peace: the trouble is that their right of nations is not
founded on true principles.

In addition to the right of nations, which concerns all societies, there
is a political right for each one. A society could not continue to exist
without a government. “The union of all individual strengths,” as Gravina
aptly says, “forms what is called the political state.” 0

The strength of the whole society may be put in the hands of one alone
or in the hands of many / Since nature has established paternal power,
some have thought that government by one alone is most in conformity
with nature. But the example of paternal power proves nothing. For, if
the power of the father is related to government by one alone, then after
the death of the father, the power of the brothers, or after the death of
the brothers, the power of the first cousins, is related to government by
many. Political power necessarily includes the union of many families.

It is better to say that the government most in conformity with nature
is the one whose particular arrangement best relates to the disposition
of the people for whom it is established.*

Individual strengths cannot be united unless all wills are united. The
union of these wills, as Gravina again aptly says, is what is called the
CIVIL state:

Law in general is human reason insofar as it governs all the peoples
of the earth; and the political and civil laws of each nation should be
only the particular cases to which human reason is applied.

Laws should be so appropriate to the people for whom they are made
that it is very unlikely that the laws of one nation can suit another.

Laws must relate to the nature and the principle of the government
that is established or that one wants to establish, whether those laws
form it as do political laws, or maintain it, as do civil laws.

“Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, Origine Romani juris (1739), bk. 2, chap. 18, p. 160.

'’The eighteenth -century meaning of plusieurs was “many.” The opposition is between
“one” and “many,” as between monarchies or despotisms and republics in Book 2.
q llvaut mieux dire que le gouvemement le plus conforme d la nature est celui dont la disposition
particuliere se rapporte mieux a la disposition du peupie pour lequel il est etabli. No English
word covers ail the disparate topics Montesquieu joins with the word disposition.
r Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, Origine Romani juris ( 1739 ), bk. 3, chap. 7 , footnote, p.

3 11 -

8

On laws in general

They should be related to the physical aspect of the country; to the
climate, be it freezing, torrid, or temperate; to the properties of the
terrain, its location and extent; to the way of life of the peoples, be they
plowmen, hunters, or herdsmen; they should relate to the degree of
liberty that the constitution can sustain, to the religion of the
inhabitants, their inclinations, their wealth, their number, their com-
merce, their mores and their manners; finally, the laws are related to
one another, to their origin, to the purpose of the legislator, and to the
order of things on which they are established. They must be considered
from all these points of view.

This is what I undertake to do in this work. I shall examine all these
relations; together they form what is called the spirit of the
laws/

I have made no attempt to separate political from owYlaws, for, as I do
not treat laws but the spirit of the laws, and as this spirit consists in the
various relations that laws may have with various things, I have had to
follow the natural order of laws less than that of these relations and of
these things.

I shall first examine the relations that laws have with the nature and
the principle of each government, and, as this principle has a supreme
influence on the laws, I shall apply myself to understanding it well; and
if I can once establish it, the laws will be seen to flow from it as from
their source. I shall then proceed to other relations that seem to be
more particular.

'l ’esprit des loix. Whenver possible, we translate esprit as “spirit,” but “mind”
and “wit” also appear.

9

c>c»ooc»oort>oo 0C'0fROC»G»C*0©0<aC»00C»0C>0O

BOOK 2

On laws deriving directly from the
nature of the government

CHAPTER I

On the nature of the three varieties of governments

There are three kinds of government: republican, monarchi-
cal, and despotic. To discover the nature of each, the idea of
them held by the least educated of men is sufficient. I assume three
definitions, or rather, three facts: one, republican government is that in
which the people as a body , or only a part of the people, have sovereign power;
monarchical government is that in which one alone governs, but by fixed and
established laws; whereas, in despotic government, one alone, without law and
without rule, draws everything along by his will and his caprices.

That is what I call the nature of each government. One must see what
laws follow directly from this nature and are consequently the first
fundamental laws.

CHAPTER 2

On republican government and on laws relative to
democracy

In a republic when the people as a body have sovereign power, it is a
democracy. When the sovereign power is in the hands of a part of the
people, it is called an aristocracy.

In a democracy the people are, in certain respects, the monarch; in
other respects, they are the subjects.

They can be the monarch only through their votes which are their
wills. The sovereign’s will is the sovereign himself. Therefore, the laws

io

Lam deriving from the nature of government

establishing the right to vote are fundamental in this government.
Indeed, it is as important in this case to regulate how, by whom, for
whom, and on what issues votes should be cast, as it is in a monarchy to
know the monarch and how he should govern.

Libanius 1 says that in Athens a foreigner who mingled in the people's
assembly was punished with death. This is because such a man usurped
the right of sovereignty.

It is essential to determine the number of citizens that should form
assemblies; unless this is done it cannot be known if the people have
spoken or only a part of the people. In Lacedaemonia, there had to be
10,000 citizens. In Rome, which started small and became great,
Rome, made to endure all the vicissitudes of fortune, Rome, which
sometimes had nearly all its citizens outside its walls and sometimes all
Italy and a part of the world within them, the number was not
determined ; 2 this was one of the great causes of its ruin.

A people having sovereign power should do for itself all it can do
well, and what it cannot do well, it must do through its ministers.

Ministers do not belong to the people unless the people name them;
therefore it is a fundamental maxim of this government that the people
should name their ministers, that is, their magistrates.

The people, like monarchs and even more than monarchs, need to
be guided by a council or senate. But in order for the people to trust it,
they must elect its members, either choosing the members themselves,
as in Athens, or establishing some magistrate to elect them as was
occasionally the practice in Rome.

The people are admirable for choosing those to whom they should
entrust some part of their authority. They have only to base their
decisions on things of which they cannot be unaware and on facts that
are evident to the senses. They know very well that a man has often
been to war, that he has had such and such successes; they are, then,
quite capable of electing a general. They know that a judge is
assiduous, that many people leave the tribunal" satisfied with him, and

1 [Libanius] Declamations 17 [Hyperides oratio 18.5-6] and 18 [Strategi apologia 44.15].

2 See [M.’s] Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline,
chap. 9, Paris, 1755 [chap. 9, p. 92; 1965 Eng. edn.].

a For tribunal we use “tribunal,” and for cour, “court”; by keeping this distinction, we
make the history of the development of tribunals as separate from the court of some
king or nobleman easier to follow.

1 1

Part j

that he has not been convicted of corruption; this is enough for them to
elect a praetor.* They have been struck by the magnificence or wealth
of a citizen; that is enough for them to be able to choose an aedile. All
these things are facts that they learn better in a public square than a
monarch does in his palace. But will the people know how to conduct
the public business/ will they know the places, the occasions, the
moments, and profit from them? No, they will not.

If one were to doubt the people’s natural ability to perceive merit,
one would have only to cast an eye over that continuous series of
astonishing choices made by the Athenians and the Romans; this will
doubtless not be ascribed to chance.

It is known that in Rome, though the people had given themselves
the right to elevate plebeians to posts, they could not bring themselves
to elect them; and in Athens, although, according to the law of
Aristides, magistrates could be drawn from any class, Xenophon 3 says
that it never happened that the common people turned to those classes
that could threaten their well-being or glory.

Just as most citizens, who are competent enough to elect, are not
competent enough to be elected, so the people, who are sufficiently
capable to call others to account for their management, are not suited to
manage by themselves.

Public business must proceed, and proceed at a pace that is neither
too slow nor too fast. But the people always act too much or too little.
Sometimes with a hundred thousand arms they upset everything;
sometimes with a hundred thousand feet they move only like insects.

In the popular state, the people are divided into certain classes.
Great legislators have distinguished themselves by the way they have
made this division, and upon it the duration and prosperity of democra-
cies have always depended.

Servius Tullius followed the spirit of aristocracy in the composition
of his classes. In Livy 4 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus 5 , we see how he

3 [Xenophon, “The Old Oligarch,” The Constitution of Athens] pp. 691, 692, Wechelius
edition of 1596 [1.3].

4 [Livy] bk. 1 [1.43I.

5 [Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom.] bk. 4, arts. isff. [4.15-21].

*See 11.14 (p. 173) for Montesquieu’s explanation of the Roman magistracies.
^Montesquieu uses affaire to refer to law-suits, translated “suits”; to issues before
legislative bodies or sovereigns, translated “public business”; and to commercial
transactions, translated “business.”

12

Laws deriving from the nature of government

put the right to vote into the hands of the principal citizens. He divided
the people of Rome into one hundred and ninety-three centuries,
forming six classes. He put the rich men, but in smaller numbers, into
the first centuries; he put the less rich, but in larger numbers, into the
following ones; he put the entire throng of the poor into the last
century; and, since each century had only one voice , 6 it was means and
wealth that had the vote rather than persons.

Solon divided the people of Athens into four classes. Guided by the
spirit of democracy, he made these classes in order to specify not those
who were to elect but those who could be elected; and leaving to the
citizens the right to elect, he wanted them 7 to be able to elect judges
from each of those four classes but magistrates from the first three only,
where the well-to-do citizens were found.

Just as the division of those having the right to vote is a fundamental
law in the republic, the way of casting the vote is another fundamental
law.

Voting by lot is in the nature of democracy; voting by choice is in the
nature of aristocracy.

The casting of lots is a way of electing that distresses no one; it leaves
to each citizen a reasonable expectation of serving his country.

But as it is imperfect by itself, the great legislators have outdone each
other in regulating and correcting it.

In Athens, Solon established that all military posts would be filled by
choice but that senators and judges would be elected by lot.

He wanted the civil magistrates that required great expenditures to
be given by choice and the others to be given by lot.

But in order to correct the vote by lot, he ruled that one could elect
only from the number of those who presented themselves, that he who
had been elected would be examined by judges , 8 and that each judge
could accuse him of being unworthy ; 9 this derived from both lot and

6 See [M.’s) Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, chap.
9, for how the spirit of Servius Tullius was preserved in the republic [chap. 8, pp. 86-87;
1965 Eng. edn.].

7 Dion. Hal. [ Deantiquis oratoribus], “Isocrates,” vol. 2, p. 97, Wechelius edition [Isocrates
8]. [Julius] Pollux [Onomasticon], bk. 8, chap. 10, art. 130 [8.10.130. Pollux does not
mention election, only class divisions in accord with property evaluations and the tax to be
paid. See below, bk. 13, n. 4].

8 See Demosthenes, Orationes, De falsa legatione [19.1-8] and Against Timocrates
[24.21-22].

9 Two tickets were even drawn for each place, one assigning the place and the other naming
the person who was to succeed to it in case the first was rejected.

Part i

choice. On completing his term, the magistrate had to go through a
second judgment regarding the way in which he had conducted
himself. People without ability must have been very reluctant to offer
their names to be drawn by lot.

The law that determines the way ballots are cast is another
fundamental law in democracy. Whether the votes should be public or
secret is a great question. Cicero 10 writes that the laws 11 that made them
secret in the late period of the Roman republic were one of the major
causes of its fall. Given that this practice varies in different republics,
here, 1 believe, is what must be thought about it.

When the people cast votes, their votes should no doubt be public; 12
and this should be regarded as a fundamental law of democracy. The
lesser people must be enlightened by the principal people and subdued
by the gravity of certain eminent men. Thus in the Roman republic all
was destroyed by making the votes secret; it was no longer possible to
enlighten a populace on its way to ruin. But votes cannot be too secret in
an aristocracy when the body of nobles casts the votes, 13 or in a
democracy when the senate does so, 14 for here the only issue is to guard
against intrigues.

Intrigue is dangerous in a senate; it is dangerous in a body of nobles;
it is not dangerous in the people, whose nature is to act from passion. In
states where the people have no part in the government, they become as
inflamed for an actor as they would for public affairs. The misfortune
of a republic is to be without intrigues, and this happens when the
people have been corrupted by silver; they become cool, they grow fond
of silver, and they are no longer fond of public affairs; without concern
for the government or for what is proposed there, they quietly await
their payments.

Yet another fundamental law in democracy is that the people alone
should make laws. However, there are a thousand occasions when it is
necessary for the senate to be able to enact laws; it is often even

,0 [Cicero] De legibus, bks. r and 3 [e.g., 3.15.33-3.17.40].

1 1 They were called ballotting laws. Each citizen was given two ballots, the first marked with
an A, for Antique [to reject or to leave something in its former condition]; the other with U
and R, for uti rogas [to ask for an opinion or vote], [Refers to Cicero, De legibus 3.34.37.]
12 In Athens, hands were raised.

13 As in Venice.

14 The thirty tyrants of Athens wanted the votes of the Areopagus to be public in order to
direct them according to their fancy. Lysias, Orationes, Against Agoratus, chap. 8 [13.37].

Laws deriving from the nature of government

appropriate to test a law before establishing it. The constitutions of
Rome and Athens were very wise. The decrees of the senate 15 had the
force of law for a year; they became permanent only by the will of the
people.

l5 See Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 4 [4.80.2 and 4.74.2] and bk. 9 [9.37.2].

CHAPTER 3

On laws relative to the nature of aristocracy

In aristocracy, sovereign power is in the hands of a certain number of
persons. They make the laws and see to their execution, and the rest of
the people mean at best no more to these persons than the subjects in a
monarchy mean to the monarch.

Voting should not be by lot; this would have only drawbacks. Indeed,
in a government that has already established the most grievous
distinctions, though a man might be chosen by lot, he would be no less
odious for it; the noble is envied, not the magistrate.

When there are many nobles, there must be a senate to rule on the
affairs that the body of nobles cannot decide and to take the preliminary
steps for those on which it decides. In the latter case, it may be said that
aristocracy is, in a way, in the senate, that democracy is in the body of
nobles, and that the people are nothing.

It is a very fine thing in an aristocracy for the people to be raised from
their nothingness in some indirect way; thus, in Genoa, the Bank of St
George, administered largely by the principal men among the people , 16
gives the people a certain influence in government, which brings about
their whole prosperity.

Senators should not have the right to fill vacancies in the senate;
nothing would be more likely to perpetuate abuses. In Rome, which
was a kind of aristocracy in its early days, the senate did not name
replacements; new senators were named by the censors . 17

When an exorbitant authority is given suddenly to a citizen in a

,6 |Joseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy in the Years 1701, 1702, 170J, p. 16 [2,
24-25; 1914 edn.].

l7 At first they were named by the consuls.

15

Part i

republic, this forms'* a monarchy or more than a monarchy. In
monarchies, the laws have protected the constitution or have been
adapted to it; the principle of the government checks the monarch; but
in a republic when a citizen takes exorbitant power , 18 the abuse of this
power is greater because the laws, which have not foreseen it, have
done nothing to check it.

The exception to this rule occurs when the constitution of the state is
such that it needs a magistracy with exorbitant power. Such was Rome
with its dictators, such is Venice with its state inquisitors; these are
terrible magistracies which violently return the state to liberty. But how
does it happen that the magistracies are so different in these two
republics? It is because, whereas Venice uses its state inquisitors to
maintain its aristocracy against the nobles, Rome was defending the
remnants of its aristocracy against the people. From this it followed that
the dictator in Rome was installed for only a short time because the
people act from impetuosity and not from design. His magistracy was
exercised with brilliance, as the issue was to intimidate, not to punish,
the people; the dictator was created for but a single affair and had
unlimited authority with regard to that affair alone because he was
always created for unforeseen cases. In Venice, however, there must be
a permanent magistracy: here designs can be laid, followed, sus-
pended, and taken up again; here too, the ambition of one alone
becomes that of a family, and the ambition of one family, that of several.
A hidden magistracy is needed because the crimes it punishes, always
deep-seated, are formed in secrecy and silence. The inquisition of this
magistracy has to be general because its aim is not to check known evils
but to curb unknown ones. Finally, the Venetian magistracy is
established to avenge the crimes it suspects, whereas the Roman
magistracy used threats more than punishments, even for those crimes
admitted by their instigators.

In every magistracy, the greatness of the power must be offset by the
brevity of its duration. Most legislators have fixed the time at a year; a
longer term would be dangerous, a shorter one would be contrary to the
nature of the thing. Who would want thus to govern his domestic

l8 This is what caused the overthrow of the Roman republic. See the Considerations on the
Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, 'Paris, 1755 [chap. n,pp. 107-108;
1965 Eng. edn.].

^Montesquieu often uses the verb former in the old sense of establishing by giving
shape.

16

Laws deriving from the nature of government

affairs? In Ragusa , 19 the head of the republic changes every month; the
other officers, every week; the governor of the castle, every day. This
can take place only in a small republic 20 surrounded by formidable
powers which could easily corrupt petty magistrates.

The best aristocracy is one in which the part of the people having no
share in the power is so small and so poor that the dominant part has no
interest in oppressing it. Thus in Athens when Antipater 21 established
that those with less than two thousand drachmas would be excluded
from the right to vote, he formed the best possible aristocracy, because
this census'’ was so low that it excluded only a few people and no one of
any consequence in the city.

Therefore, aristocratic families should be of the people as far as
possible. The more an aristocracy approaches democracy, the more
perfect it will be, and to the degree it approaches monarchy the less
perfect it will become.

Most imperfect of all is the aristocracy in which the part of the people
that obeys is in civil slavery to the part that commands, as in the Polish
aristocracy, where the peasants are slaves of the nobility.

19 [Joseph Pitton] Toumefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant. [Not in Tournefort; he did not
write about Ragusa. A probable source is Louis Des Hayes Courmenin, Voiage de Levant,
pp. 480, 484, 485; 1632 edn.].

20 In Lucca, the magistrates are established for only two months.

21 Diodorus Siculus [Bibliotheca historica], bk. 18, p. 601, Rhodoman edition [18.18.4].

'See 13.7 (p. 216) for a further discussion of the Athenian census.

CHAPTER 4

On lams in their relation to the nature of monarchical
governments

Intermediate, subordinate, and dependent powers constitute the
nature of monarchical government, that is, of the government in which
one alone governs by fundamental laws. I have said intermediate,
subordinate, and dependent powers; indeed, in a monarchy, the prince
is the source of all political and civil power. These fundamental laws

^The awkwardness of some of the sentences and paragraphs in this chapter reflects the
difficulties inherent in asserting, in the middle of the eighteenth century in France,
that intermediate powers, however understood, were intrinsic to monarchy.

17

Part i

necessarily assume mediate channels through which power flows; for,
if in the state there is only the momentary and capricious will of one
alone, nothing can be fixed and consequently there is no fundamental
law.

The most natural intermediate, subordinate power is that of the
nobility. In a way, the nobility is of the essence of monarchy, whose
fundamental maxim is: no monarch, no nobility: no nobility, no monarch,
rather, one has a despot.

In a few European states, some people had imagined abolishing all
the justices of the lords/ They did not see that they wanted to do whay
the Parliament of England did. If you abolish the prerogatives of the
lords, clergy, nobility, and towns in a monarchy, you will soon have a
popular state or else a despotic state.

For several centuries the tribunals of a great European state have
been constantly striking down the patrimonial jurisdiction of the lords
and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. We do not want to censure such wise
magistrates, but we leave it to be decided to what extent the constitution
can be changed in this way.

I do not insist on the privileges of the ecclesiastics, but I would like
their jurisdiction to be determined once and for all. It is a question of
knowing not if one was right in establishing it but rather if it is
established, if it is a part of the country’s laws, and if it is relative to them
throughout; if between two powers recognized as independent, condi-
tions should not be reciprocal; and if it is not all the same to a good
subject to defend the prince’s justice or the limits that his justice has
always prescribed for itself.

To the extent that the power of the clergy is dangerous in republics,
it is suitable in monarchies, especially in those tending to despotism.
Where would Spain and Portugal have been, after the loss of their laws,
without the power that alone checks arbitrary power? Ever a good
barrier when no other exists, because, as despotism causes appalling
ills to human nature, the very ill that limits it is a good.

Just as the sea, which seems to want to cover the whole earth, is
checked by the grasses and the smallest bits of gravel on the shore, so
monarchs, whose power seems boundless, are checked by the slightest
obstacles and submit their natural pride to supplication and prayer.

In order to favor liberty, the English have removed all the intermedi-

*In French justice denotes both the abstract notion and the institution which judges.

See 30.20 and note bb for Montesquieu’s account of the justices of the lords.

18

Lam deriving from the nature of government

ate powers that formed their monarchy. They are quite right to
preserve that liberty; if they were to lose it, they would be one of the
most enslaved peoples on earth.

Mr. Law, equally ignorant of the republican and of the monarchical
constitutions, was one of the greatest promoters of despotism that had
until then been seen in Europe.* Besides the changes he made, which
were so abrupt, so unusual, and so unheard of, he wanted to remove the
intermediate ranks and abolish the political bodies;' he was dissolving 22
the monarchy by his chimerical repayments and seemed to want to buy
back the constitution itself.

It is not enough to have intermediate ranks in a monarchy; there
must also be a depository of laws/ This depository can only be in the
political bodies, which announce the laws when they are made and
recall them when they are forgotten. The ignorance natural to the
nobility, its laxity, and its scorn for civil government require a body that
constantly brings the laws out of the dust in which they would be
buried. The prince’s council is not a suitable depository. By its nature it
is the depository of the momentary will of the prince who executes, and
not the depository of the fundamental laws. Moreover, the monarch’s
council constantly changes; it is not permanent; it cannot be large; it
does not sufficiently have the people’s trust: therefore, it is not in a
position to enlighten them in difficult times or to return them to
obedience.

In despotic states, where there are no fundamental laws, neither is
there a depository of laws. This is why religion has so much force in
these countries; it forms a kind of permanent depository, and if it is not
religion, it is customs that are venerated in the place of laws.

22 Ferdinand, King of Aragon, made himself Grand Master of the Orders, and that alone
spoiled the constitution.

*John Law (1671-1729). See 22.10 and note c for Montesquieu’s account of Law’s
System.

'corps politiques, “political bodies,” refers to political entities, including the parlements.

7 The laws were in effect kept, held, by an entity whose responsibility was both to
preserve and to use and interpret them. In English we retain something of this
meaning in the term “deposition,” or sworn evidence taken outside the court for later
submission to the court. See 28.45 ar >d note 8 f° r Montesquieu’s explanation of the
depository of the laws.

19

Part i

CHAPTER 5

On laws relative to the nature of the despotic state

A result of the nature of despotic power is that the one man who
exercises it has it likewise exercised by another. A man whose five
senses constantly tell him that he is everything and that others are
nothing is naturally lazy, ignorant, and voluptuous. Therefore, he
abandons the public business. But, if he entrusted this business to
many people, there would be disputes among them; there would be
intrigues to be the first slave; the prince would be obliged to return to
administration. Therefore it is simpler for him to abandon them to a
vizir 23 who will instantly have the same power as he. In this state, the
establishment of a vizir is a fundamental law.

It is said that a certain pope, upon his election, overcome with his
inadequacy, at first made infinite difficulties. Finally, he agreed to turn
all matters of business over to his nephew. He was awestruck and said,
“I would never have believed that it could be so easy.” It is the same for
the princes of the East. When, from that prison where eunuchs have
weakened their hearts and spirits and have often left them ignorant
even of their estate, these princes are withdrawn to be put on the
throne, they are stunned at first; but when they have appointed a vizir,
when in their seraglio they have given themselves up to the most brutal
passions, when in the midst of a downtrodden court they have followed
their most foolish caprices, they would never have believed that it could
be so easy.

The more extensive the empire, the larger the seraglio, and the
more, consequently, the prince is drunk with pleasures. Thus, in these
states, the more peoples the prince has to govern, the less he thinks
about government; the greater the matters of business, the less
deliberation they are given.

23 Eastern kings always have vizirs, says [John] Chardin | Voyages, “Description du gouverne-
ment”; chap. 5, “Des charges”; 5, 339-340; 181 1 edn.].

20

BOOK 3

On the principles of the
three governments

CHAPTER I

The difference between the nature of the government
and its principle

After having examined the laws relative to the nature of each govern-
ment, one must look at those that are relative to its principle.

There is this difference 1 between the nature of the government and
its principle: its nature is that which makes it what it is, and its principle,
that which makes it act. The one is its particular structure, and the
other is the human passions that set it in motion.

Now, the laws should be no less relative to the principle of each
government than to its nature. Therefore, this principle must be
sought. I shall do so in this book.

1 This difference is very important, and I shall draw many consequences from it; it is the key
to an infinity of laws.

CHAPTER 2

On the principle of the various governments

I have said that the nature of republican government is that the people
as a body, or certain families, have the sovereign power; the nature of
monarchical government is that the prince has the sovereign power, but
that he exercises it according to established laws; the nature of despotic
government is that one alone governs according to his wills and
caprices. Nothing more is needed for me to find their three principles;
they derive naturally from this. I shall begin with republican govern-
ment, and I shall first speak of the democratic government.

Part i

CHAPTER 3

On the principle of democracy

There need not be much integrity for a monarchical or despotic
government to maintain or sustain itself. The force of the laws in the
one and the prince’s ever-raised arm in the other can rule or contain
the whole. But in a popular state there must be an additional spring,
which is virtue.

What I say is confirmed by the entire body of history and is quite in
conformity with the nature of things. For it is clear that less virtue is
needed in a monarchy, where the one who sees to the execution of the
laws judges himself above the laws, than in a popular government,
where the one who sees to the execution of the laws feels that he is
subject to them himself and that he will bear their weight.

It is also clear that the monarch who ceases to see to the execution of
the laws, through bad counsel or negligence, may easily repair the
damage; he has only to change his counsel or correct his own
negligence. But in a popular government when the laws have ceased to
be executed, as this can come only from the corruption of the republic,
the state is already lost.

It was a fine spectacle in the last century to see the impotent attempts
of the English to establish democracy among themselves. As those who
took part in public affairs had no virtue at all, as their ambition was
excited by the success of the most audacious one 2 and the spirit of one
faction was repressed only by the spirit of another, the government was
constantly changing; the people, stunned, sought democracy and found
it nowhere. Finally, after much motion and many shocks and jolts, they
had to come to rest on the very government that had been proscribed.

When Sulla wanted to return liberty to Rome, it could no longer be
accepted; Rome had but a weak remnant of virtue, and as it had ever
less, instead of reawakening after Caeser, Tiberius, Caius , 0 Claudius,
Nero, and Domitian, it became ever more enslaved; all the blows were
struck against tyrants, none against tyranny.

The political men of Greece who lived under popular government
recognized no other force to sustain it than virtue. Those of today speak

2 Cromwell.

“Caligula.

22

On the principles of the three governments

to us only of manufacturing, commerce, finance/ wealth, and even
luxury.

When that virtue ceases, ambition enters those hearts that can admit
it, and avarice enters them all. Desires change their objects: that which
one used to love, one loves no longer. One was free under the laws, one
wants to be free against them. Each citizen is like a slave who has
escaped from his master’s house. What was a maxim is now called
severity; what was a rule is now called constraint ; c what was vigilance is
now called fear. There, frugality, not the desire to possess, is avarice.
Formerly the goods of individuals made up the public treasury; the
public treasury has now become the patrimony of individuals. The
republic is a cast-off husk, and its strength is no more than the power of
a few citizens and the license of all.

There were the same forces in Athens when it dominated with so
much glory and when it served with so much shame. It had 20,000
citizens 3 when it defended the Greeks against the Persians, when it
disputed for empire with Lacedaemonia, and when it attacked Sicily. It
had 20,000 when Demetrius of Phalereus enumerated them 4 as one
counts slaves in a market. When Philip dared dominate in Greece,
when he appeared at the gates of Athens , 5 Athens had as yet lost only
time. In Demosthenes one may see how much trouble was required to
reawaken it; Philip was feared as the enemy not of liberty but of
pleasures . 6 This town, which had resisted in spite of so many defeats,
which had been reborn after its destructions, was defeated at
Chaeronea and was defeated forever. What does it matter that Philip
returns all the prisoners? He does not return men. It was always as easy
to triumph over the forces of Athens as it was difficult to triumph over
its virtue.

How could Carthage have sustained itself? When Hannibal, as
praetor, wanted to keep the magistrates from pillaging the republic, did

3 Plutarch [Vit.], Pericles [37.4]; Plato, Critias [11 2d].

4 There were 21,000 citizens, 10,000 resident aliens, and 400,000 slaves. See Athenaeus
[Naucratia] [ Deipnosophistae ], bk. 6 [272c],

3 It had 20,000 citizens. See Demosthenes, [Orationes] Against Aristogeiton [25.51].

6 They had passed a law to punish by death anyone who might propose that the silver
destined for the theatres be converted to the uses of war.

b Finance, “finance,” refers to both the debts and the receipts of the state; “finance” is
linked with “fisc.” See note *, bk. 30.

'The meaning of gene goes as far as “torture,” but “constraint” gets at the central
meaning of something imposed from outside.

23

Part i

they not go and accuse him before the Romans? Unhappy men, who
wanted to be citizens without a city and to owe their wealth to the hand
of their destroyers! Soon Rome asked them to send three hundred of
the principal citizens of Carthage as hostages; Rome made them
surrender their arms and ships and then declared war on them. Given
the things that a disarmed Carthage did from despair , 7 one may judge
what it could have done with its virtue when it had its full force.

7 This war lasted three years.

CHAPTER 4

On the principle of aristocracy

Just as there must be virtue in popular government, there must also be
virtue in the aristocratic one. It is true that it is not as absolutely
required.

The people, who are with respect to the nobles what the subjects are
with respect to the monarch, are contained by the nobles’ laws.
Therefore, they need virtue less than the people of a democracy. But
how will the nobles be contained? Those w r ho should see to the
execution of the laws against their fellows will instantly feel that they act
against themselves. Virtue must, therefore, be in this body by the
nature of the constitution.

Aristocratic government has a certain strength in itself that
democracy does not have. In aristocratic government, the nobles form a
body, which, by its prerogative and for its particular interest, represses
the people; having laws is enough to insure that they will be executed.

But it is as easy for this body to repress the others as it is difficult for it
to repress itself . 8 Such is the nature of this constitution that it seems to
put under the power of the laws the same people it exempts from them.

Now such a body may repress itself in only two ways: either by a great
virtue that makes the nobles in some way equal to their people, which
may form a great republic; or by a lesser virtue, a certain moderation
that renders the nobles at least equal among themselves, which brings
about their preservation.

8 Public crimes can be punished there because they are the business of all; private crimes
will not be punished there, because it is not the business of all to punish them.

24

On the principles of the three governments

Therefore, moderation is the soul of these governments. I mean the
moderation founded on virtue, not the one that comes from faintheart-
edness and from Laziness of soul.

CHAPTER 5

That virtue is not the principle of monarchical government

In monarchies, politics accomplishes great things with as little virtue as
it can, just as in the finest machines art employs as few motions, forces,
and wheels as possible.

The state continues to exist independently of love of the homeland,
desire for true glory, self-renunciation, sacrifice of one’s dearest
interests, and all those heroic virtues we find in the ancients and know
only by hearsay.

The laws replace all these virtues, for which there is no need; the
state excuses you from them: here an action done noiselessly is in a way
inconsequential.

Though all crimes are by their nature public, truly public crimes are
nevertheless distinguished from private crimes, so called because they
offend an individual more than the whole society.

Now, in republics private crimes are more public, that is, they run
counter to the constitution of the state more than against individuals;
and, in monarchies, public crimes are more private, that is, they run
counter to individual fortunes more than against the constitution of the
state itself.

I beg that no one be offended by what I have said; I have followed all
the histories. I know very well that virtuous princes are not rare, but I
say that in a monarchy it is very difficult for the people to be virtuous . 9

Read what the historians of all times have said about the courts of
monarchs; recall the conversations of men from every country about
the wretched character of courtiers: these are not matters of specula-
tion but of sad experience.

Ambition in idleness, meanness in arrogance, the desire to enrich
oneself without work, aversion to truth, flattery, treachery, perfidy, the

9 I speak here about political virtue, which is moral virtue in the sense that it points toward
the general good, very little about individual moral virtues, and not at all about that virtue
which relates to revealed truths. This will be seen in book 5, chap. 2 [below].

25

Part i

abandonment of all one’s engagements, the scorn of the duties of
citizens, the fear of the prince’s virtue, the expectation of his weaknes-
ses, and more than all that, the perpetual ridicule cast upon virtue,
these form, I believe, the character of the greater number of courtiers,
as observed in all places and at all times. Now, it is very awkward for
most of the principal men of a state to be dishonest people and for the
inferiors to be good people, for the former to be deceivers and the latter
to consent to be no more than dupes.

If there is some unfortunate honest man among the people , 10 hints
Cardinal Richelieu in his Political Testament , a monarch should be
careful not to employ him . 11 So true is it that virtue is not the spring of
this government! Certainly, it is not excluded, but it is not its spring.

10 To be understood in the sense of the preceding note.

11 There it is said, “One must not employ people of low degree; they are too austere and too
difficult” [Cardinal Richelieu, Testament politique, pt. i, chap. 4, sec. 1; pp. 237-238; 1947
edn.].

CHAPTER 6

How virtue is replaced in monarchical government

I hasten and I lengthen my steps, so that none will believe I satirize
monarchical government. No; if one spring is missing, monarchy has
another, honor, that is, the prejudice of each person and each
condition, takes the place of the political virtue of which I have spoken
and represents it everywhere. It can inspire the finest actions; joined
with the force of the laws, it can lead to the goal of government as does
virtue itself.

Thus, in well-regulated monarchies everyone will be almost a good
citizen, and one will rarely find someone who is a good man; for, in
order to be a good man , 12 one must have the intention of being one 13
and love the state less for oneself than for itself.

12 These words, good man, are to be taken here only in a political sense.

13 See note 9.

26

On the principles of the three governments

CHAPTER 7

On the principle of monarchy

Monarchical government assumes, as we have said, preeminences,
ranks, and even a hereditary nobility. The nature of honor is to demand
preferences and distinctions; therefore, honor has, in and of itself, a
place in this government.

Ambition is pernicious in a republic. It has good effects in monarchy;
it gives life to that government; and it has this advantage, that it is not
dangerous because it can constantly be repressed.

You could say that it is like the system of the universe, where there is
a force constantly repelling all bodies from the center and a force of
gravitation attracting them to it. Honor makes all the parts of the body
politic move; its very action binds them, and each person works for the
common good, believing he works for his individual interests.

Speaking philosophically, it is true that the honor that guides all the
parts of the state is a false honor, but this false honor is as useful to the
public as the true one would be to the individuals who could have it.

And is it not impressive that one can oblige men to do all the difficult
actions and which require force, with no reward other than the renown
of these actions?

CHAPTER 8

That honor is not the principle of despotic states

Honor is not the principle of despotic states: as the men in them are all
equal, one cannot prefer oneself to others; as men in them are all slaves,
one can prefer oneself to nothing.

Moreover, as honor has its laws and rules and is incapable of
yielding, as it depends on its own caprice and not on that of another,
honor can be found only in states whose constitution is fixed and whose
laws are certain.

How could honor be endured by the despot} It glories in scorning life,
and the despot is strong only because he can take life away. How could
honor endure the despot? It has consistent rules and sustains its
caprices; the despot has no rule, and his caprices destroy all the others.

27

Part i

Honor, unknown in despotic states where even the word to express it
is often lacking , 14 reigns in monarchies; there it gives life to the whole
body politic, to the laws, and even to the virtues.

,4 See [John] Perry [The State of Russia under the Present Czar], p. 447 [262] [p. 217; 1967
edn.].

C H APTER 9

On the principle of despotic government

Just as there must be virtue in a republic and honor in a monarchy, there
must be fe a r in a despotic government. Virtue is not at all necessary
to it and honor would be dangerous.

The prince’s immense power passes intact to those to whom he
entrusts it. People capable of much self-esteem would be in a position
to cause revolutions. Therefore, fear must beat down everyone’s
courage and extinguish even the slightest feeling of ambition.

A moderate government can, as much as it wants and without peril,
relax its springs. It maintains itself by its laws and even by its force. But
when in despotic government the prince ceases for a moment to raise
his arm, when he cannot instantly destroy those in the highest places, 1S
all is lost, for when the spring of the government, which is fear , no
longer exists, the people no longer have a protector.

Apparendy it was in this sense that the cadis claimed that the Grand
Signior was not obliged to keep his word or his oath if by doing so he
limited his authority. 16 '*

The people must be judged by the laws, and the important men by
the prince’s fancy; the head of the lowest subject must be safe, and the
pasha’s head always exposed. One cannot speak of these monstrous
governments without shuddering. The Sophi of Persia, deposed in our
time by Myrrweis, saw his government perish before it was conquered
because he had not spilled enough blood . 17

15 As often happens in military aristocracy.

16 [Paul] Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire [bk. i,chap. 2;pp. 4-5;
1703 edn.].

17 See Father [jean Antoine] du Cerceau’s [translation of Judasz Tadeusz Krusinski’s]
Histoiredela demiere revolution de Perse [1, 135-136; 1740 Eng. edn.l.

“The Grand Signior was the Turkish sultan.

28

On the principles of the three governments

History tells us that Domitian’s horrible cruelties so frightened the
governors that the people revived somewhat during his reign . 18 In the
same way, a flood, destroying everything on one bank, leaves stretches
of land on the other where meadows can be seen in the distance.

18 His was a military government, which is one of the kinds of despotic government. (For
example, Suetonius, Vitae duodecim Caesarum , Domitian, 10-14, 23.1; and Tacitus,
Agricola. \

CHAPTER 10

The difference in obedience between moderate governments
and despotic governments

In despotic states the nature of the government requires extreme
obedience, and the prince’s will, once known, should produce its effect
as infallibly as does one ball thrown against another.

No tempering, modification, accommodation, terms, alternatives,
negotiations, remonstrances, nothing as good or better can be pro-
posed. Man is a creature that obeys a creature that wants.

He can no more express his fears about a future event than he can
blame his lack of success on the caprice of fortune. There, men’s
portion, like beasts’, is instinct, obedience, and chastisement.

It is useless to counter with natural feelings, respect for a father,
tenderness for one’s children and women, laws of honor, or the state of
one’s health; one has received the order and that is enough.

In Persia, when the king has condemned someone, no one may speak
to him further about it or ask for a pardon. If he were drunken or mad,
the decree would have to be carried out just the same ; 19 if it were not, he
would be inconsistent, and the law cannot be inconsistent. This has
always been their way of thinking: as the order given by Ahasuerus to
exterminate the Jews could not be revoked, it was decided to give them
permission to defend themselves/

There is, however, one thing with which one can sometimes counter

l9 See [John] Chardin [Voyages, “Description du gouvemement,” chap. 2, “De la nature du
gouvemement”; 5, 229; 1811 edn.J.

'Ahasuerus is the Hebrew form of Xerxes (Xerxes I in this instance).

29

Part i

the prince’s will : 20 that is religion. One will forsake one’s father, even
kill him, if the prince orders it, but one will not drink wine if the prince
wants it and orders it. The laws of religion are part of a higher precept,
because they apply to the prince as well as to the subjects. But it is not
the same for natural right; the prince is not assumed to be a man.

In monarchical and moderate states, power is limited by that which is
its spring; I mean honor, which reigns like a monarch over the prince
and the people. One will not cite the laws of religion to a courtier: he
would feel it was ridiculous; instead one will incessantly cite the laws of
honor. This results in necessary modifications of obedience; honor is
naturally subject to eccentricities, and obedience will follow them all.

Though the way of obeying is different in these two governments,
the power is nevertheless the same. In whatever direction the monarch
turns, he prevails by tipping the balance and he is obeyed. The whole
difference is that, in the monarchy, the prince is enlightened and the
ministers are infinitely more skillful and experienced in public affairs
than they are in the despotic state.

20 Ibid. [John Chardin, Voyages, “Description du gouvemement des Persans”; 5, 233-235;
1811 edn.].

CHAPTER II

Reflections on all this

Such are the principles of the three governments: this does not mean
that in a certain republic one is virtuous, but that one ought to be; nor
does this prove that in a certain monarchy, there is honor or that in a
particular despotic state, there is fear, but that unless it is there, the
government is imperfect.

30

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BOOK 4

That the laws of education should be
relative to the principles of the
government

CHAPTER I

On the laws of education

The lam of education are the first we receive. And as these prepare us to
be citizens, each particular family should be governed according to the
plan of the great family that includes them all.

If there is a principle for the people taken generally, then the parts
which compose it, that is, the families, will have one also. Therefore,
the laws of education will be different in each kind of government. In
monarchies, their object will be honor, in republics, virtue ; in despot-
isms,^^.

CHAPTER 2

On education in monarchies

In monarchies the principal education is not in the public institutions
where children are instructed; in a way, education begins when one
enters the world. The world is the school of what is called honor, the
universal master that should everywhere guide us.

Here, one sees and always hears three things: that a certain nobility
must be put in the virtues, a certain frankness in the mores, and a certain
politeness in the manners.

The virtues we are shown here are always less what one owes others
than what one owes oneself; they are not so much what calls us to our
fellow citizens as what distinguishes us from them.

3i

Part i

One judges men’s actions here not as good but as fine, not as just but
as great; not as reasonable but as extraordinary.

As soon as honor can find something noble here, honor becomes
either a judge who makes it legitimate or a sophist who justifies it.“

It allows gallantry when gallantry is united with the idea of an
attachment of the heart or the idea of conquest; and this is the true
reason mores are never as pure in monarchies as in republican
governments.

It allows deceit when deceit is added to the idea of greatness of spirit
or greatness of business, as in politics, whose niceties do not offend it.

It forbids adulation only when adulation is separated from the idea of
a great fortune and is joined only with the feeling of one’s own
meanness.

I have said that, in monarchies, education should bring a certain
frankness to the mores. Therefore, truth is desired in speech. But is
this for the love of truth? Not at all. It is desired because a man
accustomed to speaking the truth appears to be daring and free.
Indeed, such a man seems dependent only on things and not on the way
another receives them.

This is why, commending this kind of frankness here, one scorns
that of the people, which has for its aim only truth and simplicity.

Finally, education in monarchies requires a certain politeness in
manners. Men, born to live together, are also born to please each other;
and he who does not observe the proprieties offends all those with
whom he lives and discredits himself so much that he becomes unable
to do any good thing.

But politeness does not customarily have its origin in such a pure
source. It arises from the desire to distinguish oneself. We are polite
from arrogance; we flatter ourselves that our manners prove that we are
not common and that we have not lived with the sort of people who have
been neglected through the ages.

In monarchies, politeness is naturalized at court. One excessively
great man makes all others small. Hence the regard owed to everyone
else and the politeness that flatters as much those who are polite as
those to whom they are polite, because that politeness makes it
understood that one belongs to the court or that one is worthy of
belonging to it.

a Des que I’honneury pent trouver quelque chose de noble, il est ou le juge qui les [le] rend
legitimes, ou le sophiste qui les [le] justifie.

32

The laws of education

The courtly air consists in putting away one’s own greatness for a
borrowed greatness. This greatness is more flattering to a courtier than
is his own. It gives a certain haughty modesty that spreads afar but
whose arrogance diminishes imperceptibly in proportion to its distance
from the source of greatness.

At court one finds a delicacy of taste in all things, which comes from
continual use of the excesses of a great fortune, from the variety, and
especially the weariness, of pleasures, from the multiplicity, even the
confusion, of fancies, which, when they are pleasing, are always
accepted.

Education bears on all these things to make what is called the honnete
homme, b who has all the qualities and all the virtues required in this
government.

Honor, meddling in everything, enters into all the modes of thought
and all the ways of feeling and even directs the principles.

This eccentric honor shapes the virtues into what it wants and as it
wants: on its own, it puts rules on everything prescribed to us;
according to its fancy, it extends or limits our duties, whether their
source be religion, politics, or morality.

There is nothing in monarchy that laws, religion, and honor pre-
scribe so much as obedience to the wills of the prince, but this honor
dictates to us that the prince should never prescribe an action that
dishonors us because it would make us incapable of serving him.

Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but he proposed to
Henry III that he engage the duke in battle. After Saint Bartholomew’s
Day, when Charles IX had sent orders to all the governors to have the
Huguenots massacred, the Viscount of Orte, who was in command at
Bayonne, wrote to the king , 1 “Sire, I have found among the inhabitants
and the warriors only good citizens, brave soldiers, and not one
executioner; thus, they and I together beg Your Majesty to use our
arms and our lives for things that can be done.” This great and
generous courage regarded a cowardly action as an impossible thing.

For the nobility, honor prescribes nothing more than serving the
prince in war: indeed, this is the preeminent profession because its
risks, successes, and even misfortunes lead to greatness. But honor

’See [Theodore Agrippa] d’Aubigne’s Histoire universale [bk. 6, chap. 5; 3.364; 1985 edn.].

4 In the seventeenth century honnete homme came to refer to a gentleman of courdy
manner who was not necessarily noble by birth.

33

Part i

wants to be the arbiter in imposing this law; and if honor has been
offended, it permits or requires one to withdraw to one’s home.

It wants one to be able indifferently to aspire to posts or to refuse
them; it regards this liberty as greater than fortune itself.

Honor, therefore, has its supreme rules, and education is obliged to
conform to them . 2 The principal rules are that we are indeed allowed to
give importance to our fortune but that we are sovereignly forbidden to
give any to our life.

The second is that, when we have once been placed in a rank, we
should do or suffer nothing that might show that we consider ourselves
inferior to the rank itself.

The third is that, what honor forbids is more rigorously forbidden
when the laws do not agree in proscribing it, and that what honor
requires is more strongly required when the laws do not require it.

2 These comments refer to what is and not to what should be; honor is a prejudice, which
religion sometimes works to destroy and sometimes to regulate.

CHAPTER 3

On education in despotic government

Just as education in monarchies works only to elevate the heart,
education in despotic states seeks only to bring it down. There,
education must bring about servility. It will be a good, even for the
commander, to have had such an education, since no one is a tyrant
there without at the same time being a slave.

Extreme obedience assumes ignorance in the one who obeys; it
assumes ignorance even in the one who commands; he does not have to
deliberate, to doubt, or to reason; he has only to want.

In despotic states, each household is a separate empire. Therefore,
education, which comes mainly from living with others, is quite limited
there; it is reduced to putting fear in the heart and in teaching the spirit
a few very simple religious principles. Knowledge will be dangerous,
rivalry deadly; and, as for the virtues, Aristotle cannot believe that any
are proper to slaves ; 3 this would indeed limit education in this
government.

3 [Aristotle] Pol., bk. i [i 260334-1 26ob8],

34

The laws of education

Therefore, education is, in a way, null there. One must take
everything away in order to give something and begin by making a bad
subject in order to make a good slave.

Well! Why would education be intent upon forming a good citizen to
take part in the public unhappiness? If he loved the state, he would be
tempted to relax the springs of the government; if he failed, he would be
ruined; if he succeeded, he would run the risk of ruining himself, the
prince, and the empire.

CHAPTER 4

The difference in the effect of education among the ancients
and among ourselves

Most of the ancient peoples lived in governments that had virtue for
their principle, and when that virtue was in full force, things were done
in those governments that we no longer see and that astonish our small
souls.

Their education had another advantage over ours; it was never
contradicted. In the last year of his life, Epaminondas said, heard, saw,
and did the same things as at the time that he was first instructed.

Today we receive three different or opposing educations: that of our
fathers, that of our schoolmasters, and that of the world. What we are
told by the last upsets all the ideas of the first two. This comes partly
from the opposition there is for us between the ties of religion and those
of the world, a thing unknown among the ancients.

CHAPTER 5

On education in republican government

It is in republican government that the full power of education is
needed. Fear in despotic governments arises of itself from threats and
chastisements; honor in monarchies is favored by the passions and
favors them in turn; but political virtue is a renunciation of oneself,
which is always a very painful thing.

35

Part i

One can define this virtue as love of the laws and the homeland. This
love, requiring a continuous preference of the public interest over one’s
own, produces all the individual virtues; they are only that preference.

This love is singularly connected with democracies. In them alone,
government is entrusted to each citizen. Now government is like all
things in the world; in order to preserve it, one must love it.

One never hears it said that kings do not love monarchy or that
despots hate despotism.

Therefore, in a republic, everything depends on establishing this
love, and education should attend to inspiring it. But there is a sure way
for children to have it; it is for the fathers themselves to have it.

One is ordinarily in charge of giving one’s knowledge to one’s
children and even more in charge of giving them one’s own passions.

If this does not happen, it is because what was done in the father’s
house is destroyed by impressions from the outside.

It is not young people who degenerate; they are ruined only when
grown men have already been corrupted.

chapter6

On some Greek institutions

The ancient Greeks, persuaded that peoples who lived in a popular
government must of necessity be brought up to be virtuous, made
singular institutions to inspire virtue. When you see, in the Life of
Lycurgus, the laws he gave the Lacedaemonians, you believe you are
reading the history of the Sevarambes. The laws of Crete were the
originals for the laws of Lacedaemonia, and Plato’s laws were their
correction.

I pray that one pay a little attention to the breadth of genius of those
legislators who saw that by running counter to all received usages and
by confusing all virtues, they would show their wisdom to the universe.
Lycurgus, mixing larceny with the spirit of justice, the harshest slavery
with extreme liberty, the most heinous feelings with the greatest
moderation, gave stability to his town. He seemed to remove all its
resources, arts, commerce, silver, walls: one had ambition there
without the expectation of bettering oneself; one had natural feelings
but was neither child, husband, nor father; modesty itself was removed

36

The laws of education

from chastity. In these ways, Sparta was led to greatness and glory, with
such an infallibility in its institutions that nothing was gained by
winning battles against it, until its police was taken away. 4c

Crete and Laconia were governed by these laws. Lacedaemonia was
the last to yield to the Macedonians, and Crete 5 was the last prey of the
Romans. The Samnites had these same institutions and they provided
the occasion for twenty- four triumphs for the Romans . 6

We can see that which was extraordinary in the Greek institutions in
the dregs and corruption of modem times . 7 A legislator, an honnete
hommef has formed a people in whom integrity seems as natural as
bravery was among the Spartans. Mr. Penn is a true Lycurgus; and,
though he has had peace for his object as Lycurgus had war, they are
alike in the unique path on which they have set their people, in their
ascendancy over free men, in the prejudices they have vanquished, and
in the passions they have subdued.

Paraguay can furnish us with another example. Some have wanted to
use it to level charges against the Society/ which considers the pleasure
of commanding the only good in life, but governing men by making
men happier will always be a fine thing . 8

It is fortunate for the Society that it was the first to show in these
countries the idea of religion joined with that of humanity. By repairing
the pillages of the Spaniards, it has begun to heal one of the greatest
wounds mankind has yet received.

The Society’s exquisite feeling for all it calls honor and its zeal for a
religion that humbles those who listen far more than those who preach
have made it undertake great things, and it has been successful. It has

4 Philopoemen forced the Lacedaemonians to give up their way of raising children, knowing
that if he did not, the Lacedaemonians would always have great souls and lofty hearts.
Plutarch [Vit.], Philopoemen [16.5]. See Livy, bk. 38 [38.34.9].

5 Crete defended its laws and its liberty for three years. See books 98, 99, and 100 of Livy in
xheEpitome ofFlorus [1.42.1; 3.7.1]. [Injohann Freinsheim, Supplementorum Livianorum
97.14-15; 98.80-84; 99 47; 100. 10.] It put up more resistance than the greatest kings.

6 Florus [Epitome rerum Romanorum], bk. 1 [1.11.8-1.16.8].

7 “Among the dregs of Romulus” [L.]. Cicero [Epistolae ad Atticum 2.1.8].

8 The Indians of Paraguay do not depend on a particular lord; their tributes are but one-
fifth, and they have firearms for protection.

f We have translated police as “police.” In the eighteenth century, in both French and
English, police meant the administration, or order, of everyday things. See note
bk. 26.

rf See note *, bk. 4.
f The Jesuits were called the Societe.

37

Part i

brought dispersed peoples out of the woods; it has assured their
sustenance; it has clothed them; and if, in so doing, it had done no more
than increase industry among men, it would have accomplished much.

Those who want to make similar institutions will establish the
community of goods of Plato’s Republic, the respect he required for the
gods, the separation from strangers in order to preserve the mores, and
commerce done by the city/ not by the citizens; they will produce our
arts without our luxury and our needs without our desires.

They will proscribe silver, whose effect is to fatten the fortune of
men beyond the limits nature has set for it, to teach men to preserve
vainly what has been amassed vainly, to multiply desires infinitely and
to supplement nature, which has given us very limited means to excite
our passions and to corrupt one another.

“The Epadamnians , 9 feeling that their communication with the
barbarians corrupted their mores, elected a magistrate to do all their
trading in the name of the city and for the city.” In this way commerce
does not corrupt the constitution, and the constitution does not deprive
the society of the advantages of commerce.

9 Plutarch [Moralia], Quaestiones Graecae (chap. 29, 297^2983].

^By and large Montesquieu seems to use cite, “city,” when speaking of a political
organization and ville, “town,” when speaking of a collection of inhabitants, however
large.

CHAPTER 7

In what case these singular institutions can be good

These sorts of institutions can be suitable in republics, because
political virtue is their principle, but less care is needed to induce honor
in monarchies or to inspire fear in despotic states.

Furthermore, they can have a place only in a small state , 10 where one
can educate the general populace and raise a whole people like a family.

The laws of Minos, Lycurgus, and Plato assume that all citizens pay
a singular attention to each other. This cannot be promised in the
confusion, oversights, and extensive business of a numerous people.
As has been said, silver must be banished from these institutions.

10 As were the Greek towns.

38

The laws of education

But in large societies, the number, the variety, the press and the
importance of business, the ease of purchases, and the slowness of
exchanges, all these require a common measure. In order to carry one’s
power everywhere or defend it everywhere, one must have that to which
men everywhere have attached power.

CHAPTER 8

Explanation of a paradox of the ancients in relation to
mores

Polybius, judicious Polybius, tells us that music was necessary to soften
the mores of the Arcadians, who lived in a country where the weather is
gloomy and cold, that the inhabitants of Kynaithes, who neglected
music, surpassed all the other Greeks in cruelty and that never had so
much crime been seen in a town/ Plato is not afraid to say that no
change can be made in music which is not a change in the constitution
of the state. Aristode, who seems to have written his Politics only in
order to oppose his feelings to Plato’s, nevertheless agrees with him
about the power of music over mores. Theophrastus/ Plutarch , 11 and
Strabo , 12 all the ancients, have thought likewise. This is not an opinion
proffered without reflection; it is one of the principles of their politics . 13
It is thus that they gave laws; it is thus that they wanted the cities to be
governed.

I believe I can explain this. One must keep in mind that in the Greek
towns, especially in those whose principal aim was war, all work and all
professions that could lead to earning silver were regarded as unworthy
of a free man. “Most arts,” said Xenophon , 14 “corrupt the body of the
one who practices them; they oblige one to sit in the shade or near the

"[Plutarch, Vit.], Pelopidas [19. 1].

12 [Strabo, Geographica ] bk. 1 [1.2. 3 ,8).

13 Plato, Laws, bk. 4 [6.765c], says that the prefectships of music and gymnastics are the most
important employments of the city; and in his Republic, bk. 3 [400b]: “Damon will tell
you,” he said, “what sounds are capable of giving rise to baseness of soul, to insolence, and
to the contrary virtues.”

"[Xenophon] bk. 5, Oeconomicus [4.2-3].

^Polybius 4.20-21.

A Theophrastus fragments 87, 88, 89, 90.

39

Part i

fire: one has no time for one’s friends, no time for the republic.” It was
only when some democracies became corrupted that craftsmen
managed to become citizens. Aristotle 15 teaches us this, and he holds
that a good republic will never give them citizenship. 16 ’

Agriculture, too, was a servile profession, and it was ordinarily some
conquered people who followed it: the Helots farmed for the
Lacedaemonians, the Perioikoi for the Cretans, the Penestai for the
Thessalians, and other 17 slave peoples in other republics.

Finally, all common commerce 18 was disgraceful to the Greeks. A
citizen would have had to provide services for a slave, a tenant, or a
foreigner; this idea ran counter to the spirit of Greek liberty; thus
Plato 19 in his Lam wants any citizen who engages in commerce to be
punished.

In the Greek republics, one was, therefore, in a very awkward
position. One did not want the citizens to work in commerce, agri-
culture, or the arts; nor did one want them to be idle . 20 They found an
occupation in the exercises derived from gymnastics and those related
to war . 21 The institutions gave them no others. One must regard the
Greeks as a society of athletes and fighters. Now, these exercises, so

,5 [Aristotle] Pol., bk. 3, chap. 4 [1277^-3].

16 “Diophantes,” says Aristotle in Pol. [bk. 2], chap. 7 [1267b! 5-19], “formerly established
in Athens that the artisans would be slaves of the public.”

I7 Thus Plato and Aristotle want slaves to cultivate the land. [Plato] Lam, bk. 7 [8o6ej;
[Aristotle] Pol., bk. 7, chap. 10 [1330225-26]. Ir is true that agriculture was not
everywhere the work of slaves; on the contrary, as Aristotle says [Pol. 13 1 8b9~io], the best
republics were those in which it was undertaken by the citizens, but this happened only
through the corruption of the ancient governments, which had become democratic, for in
the earliest times, the towns of Greece lived as aristocracies.

x% Cauponatio [shopkeeping or innkeeping].

19 [Plato, Lam ] bk. 2 [9i9d-92oa].

20 Aristode, Pol., bk. 10. [This refers to the “completion” of Aristotle’s Politics prepared by
the Florentine scholar Cyriacus Stroza (1 504- 1 565). It was first published in 1 563 . Stroza
prepared two books, 9 and 10, providing a Greek text and a Latin translation. His
supplement later appeared in Casaubon’s edition of Aristotle, and was published into the
eighteenth century. A French translation, prepared in the late sixteenth century, was
appended to Le Roy’s translation of the Politics. Book 9 concerns the education and
training of soldiers; book 10 describes the role of princes and of priests. Both book 9 and
book 10 address the issues of gymnastics, agriculture, commerce, and the best life.]

21 “Gymnastic art is to exercise the body; the trainer’s art is for the activities of different
sports contests” [L.]. Aristotle, Pol., bk. 8, chap. 3 [133866-8].

'droit de la cite. We translate several expressions as “citizenship”; because of the variety
of meanings, the reader will find the French in these notes.

40

The laws of education

appropriate for making people harsh and savage, 22 ' needed to be
tempered by others that might soften the mores. Music, which enters
the spirit through the organs of the body, was quite suitable. It is a mean
between the physical exercises that render men harsh and the specu-
lative sciences that render them savage. One cannot say that music
inspired virtue; it would be inconceivable; but music curbed the effect
of the ferocity of the institution and gave the soul a part in education
that it would not otherwise have had.

I assume among ourselves a society of people so enamored of
hunting that they did nothing else; they would surely acquire a certain
roughness. If these same people were also to develop a taste for music,
one would soon find a difference in their manners and in their mores.
In short, the exercises practiced by the Greeks aroused in them only
one type of passion: roughness, anger, and cruelty. Music arouses them
all and can make the soul feel softness, pity, tenderness, and sweet
pleasure. Those who write on morality for us and so strongly proscribe
the theaters make us feel sufficiently the power of music on our souls.

If one gave only drums and trumpet fanfares to the society I have
mentioned, would not one fall shorter of one’s goal than if one gave it a
tender music? The ancients were right, therefore, when, under certain
circumstances, they preferred one mode of music to another for the
sake of mores.

But, one will say, why should music be preferred? Of all the
pleasures of the senses, none corrupts the soul less. We blush to read in
Plutarch 23 that the Thebans, in order to soften the mores of their young
people, established by their laws a love that ought to be proscribed by all
nations in the world.

22 Aristotle says that the children of the Lacedaemonians, who began these exercises when
very young, became too ferocious as a result. Aristotle, Pol., bk. 8, chap. 4 [1338b! 2-1 4].

23 [Plutarch, Vit.] Pelopidas [18-19.2].

"’The meaning in French of sauvage covers both the notion of the brutal and savage and
that of the shy and wild; it means something asocial.

41

BOOK 5

That the laws given by the legislator
should be relative to the principle of the
government

CHAPTER I

The idea of this book

We have just seen that the laws of education should have a relation to
the principle of each government. It is the same for the laws the
legislator gives to the society as a whole. This relation between the laws
and the principle tightens all the springs of the government, and the
principle in turn receives a new force from the laws. Thus, in physical
motion, an action is always followed by a reaction.

We shall examine this relation in each government, and we shall
begin with the republican state, which has virtue for its principle.

CHAPTER 2

What virtue is in the political state

Virtue, in a republic, is a very simple thing: it is love of the republic; it is
a feeling and not a result of knowledge; the lowest man in the state, like
the first, can have this feeling. Once the people have good maxims, they
adhere to them longer than do those who are called honnetes gens. a
Corruption seldom begins with the people; from their middling
enlightenment they have often derived a stronger attachment to that
which is established.

Love of the homeland leads to goodness in mores, and goodness in
mores leads to love of the homeland. The less we can satisfy our

"See note *, bk. 4.

42

The laws given by the legislator

particular passions, the more we give ourselves up to passions for the
general order. Why do monks so love their order? Their love comes
from the same thing that makes their order intolerable to them. Their
rule deprives them of everything upon which ordinary passions rest;
what remains, therefore, is the passion for the very rule that afflicts
them. The more austere it is, that is, the more it curtails their
inclinations, the more force it gives to those that remain.

CHAPTER 3

What lave of the republic is in a democracy

Love of the republic in a democracy is love of democracy; love of
democracy is love of equality.

Love of democracy is also love of frugality. As each one there should
have the same happiness and the same advantages, each should taste
the same pleasures and form the same expectations; this is something
that can be anticipated only from the common frugality.

Love of equality in a democracy limits ambition to the single desire,
the single happiness, of rendering greater services to one’s homeland
than other citizens. Men cannot render it equal services, but they
should equally render it services. At birth one contracts an immense
debt to it that can never be repaid.

Thus distinctions in a democracy arise from the principle of equality,
even when equality seems to be erased by successful services or
superior talents.

Love of frugality limits the desire to possess to the mindfulness
required by that which is necessary for one’s family, and even by that
which is superfluous for one’s homeland. Wealth gives a power that a
citizen cannot use for himself, for he would not be equal. It also
procures delights that he should not enjoy, because these would
likewise run counter to equality.

Thus by establishing frugality in domestic life, good democracies
opened the gate to public expenditures, as happened in Athens and
Rome. Magnificence and abundance had their source in frugality itself;
and, just as religion requires unsullied hands so that one can make
offerings to the gods, the laws wanted frugal mores so that one could
give to one’s homeland.

43

Part i

The good sense and happiness of individuals largely consists in their
having middling talents and fortunes. If a republic whose laws have
formed many middling people is composed of sober people, it will be
governed soberly;* if it is composed of happy people, it will be very
happy.

4 See note b , bk. i. Here sage must mean a quality available to mediocre, “middling,”
people.

CHAPTER 4

How love of equality and frugality is inspired

Love of equality and love of frugality are strongly aroused by equality
and frugality themselves, when one lives in a society in which both are
established by the laws.

In monarchies and despotic states, no one aspires to equality; the
idea of equality does not even occur; in these states everyone aims for
superiority. The people of the lowest conditions desire to quit those
conditions only in order to be masters of the others.

It is the same for frugality; in order to love it, one must practice it.
Those who are corrupted by delights will not love the frugal life; and if
this had been natural and ordinary, Alcibiades would not have been the
wonder of the universe. Nor will those who envy or admire the luxury of
others love frugality; people who have before their eyes only rich men,
or poor men like themselves, detest their poverty without loving or
knowing what puts an end to poverty.

Therefore, it is a very true maxim that if one is to love equality and
frugality in a republic, these must have been established by the laws.

CHAPTER 5

How the laws establish equality in democracy

Some legislators of ancient times, like Lycurgus and Romulus, divided
the lands equally. This could happen only at the founding of a new
republic; or when the old one was so corrupt and spirits so disposed

44

The laws given by the legislator

that the poor believed themselves obliged to seek, and the rich obliged
to suffer, such a remedy.

If the legislator who makes such a division does not give laws to
maintain it, his is only a transitory constitution; inequality will enter at
the point not protected by the laws, and the republic will be lost.

One must, therefore, regulate to this end dowries, gifts,
inheritances, testaments, in sum, all the kinds of contracts. For if it
were permitted to give one’s goods to whomever one wanted and as one
wanted, each individual will would disturb the disposition of the
fundamental laws/

In Athens, Solon 1 acted inconsistently with the old laws, which
ordered that goods should remain in the family of the testator , 2 when he
permitted one to leave one’s goods to whomever one wanted by
testament provided one had no children. He acted inconsistently with
his own laws; for, by cancelling debts, he had sought equality.

The law that forbade one to have two inheritances was a good law for
democracy . 3 It originated in the equal division of the lands and portions
given to each citizen. The law did not want any one man to have several
portions.

The law ordering the closest male relative to marry the female heir
arose from a similar source. Among the Jews, this law was given after a
similar division. Plato , 4 who founds his laws on this division, gives it
also, and it was an Athenian law.

There was a certain law in Athens of which, so far as I know, no one
has understood the spirit. Marriage was permitted to the step-sister on
the father’s side, but not to the step-sister on the mother’s side . 5 This
usage originated in republics, whose spirit was to avoid giving two
portions of land and consequently two inheritances to one person.
When a man married the step-sister on the father’s side, he could

’Plutarch [Vit.\ Solon [21.2].

2 Ibid. [Plutarch, Vit., Solon 21.2.]

3 Philolaus of Corinth established in Athens that the number of portions of land and that of
inheritances would always be the same. Aristotle, Pol., bk. 2, chap. 1 2 [1 274^4-5].

4 [Plato] Republic, bk. 8. [See Laws 9246-9256.]

5 Cornelius Nepos [ Liber de excellentibus ducibus exterrarum gentium\, “Preface” [4]; this
usage belonged to earliest times. Thus Abraham says of Sarah [Genesis 20.12]: “She is
my sister, daughter of my father and not of my mother.” The same reasons had caused the
same law to be established among different peoples.

^Montesquieu distinguishes here, and at note “, bk. 27, between volontes, “wills,” and
testaments, “testaments,” which may or may not be guided by those wills.

45

Part i

receive only one inheritance, that of his father; but, when he married
the step-sister on the mother’s side, it could happen that the father of
this sister, in the absence of male children, might leave her the
inheritance, and that the brother, who had married her, might conse-
quently receive tw o of them.

Let not what Philo says be proposed to me as an objection : 6 that,
although in Athens one might marry a step-sister on the father’s side
and not on the mother’s side, in Lacedaemonia one could marry a step-
sister on the mother’s side and not on the father’s side. For I find in
Strabo 7 that in Lacedaemonia when a step-sister married a brother, she
had half the brother’s portion for her dowry. It is clear that this second
law was made to curb the bad consequences of the first. In order to
prevent the goods of the step-sister’s family from passing to the
brother’s, half the brother’s goods were given to the step-sister as a
dowry.

Seneca , 8 speaking of Silanus, who had married his step-sister, says
that such permission had restricted application in Athens and was
applied generally in Alexandria. In the government of one alone, the
question of maintaining the division of goods hardly arose.

In order to maintain this division of lands in a democracy, it was a
good law that wanted the father of several children to choose one to
inherit his portion 9 and have his other children adopted by someone
who had no children, so that the number of citizens might always be
maintained equal to the number of shares.

Phaleas of Chalcedon 10 devised a way of rendering fortunes equal in
a republic where they were not equal. He wanted the rich to give
dowries to the poor and to receive none from them, and the poor to
receive silver for their daughters and to give none. But I know of no
republic that adopted such a rule. It places the citizens under such
strikingly different conditions that they would hate the very equality
that one sought to introduce. It is sometimes good for laws not to
appear to go so directly toward the end they propose.

Although in a democracy real equality is the soul of the state, still this

6 [Philo Judaeus] De specialibus legibus [III. 22; chap. 4].

7 [Strabo, Geographica ] bk. io [10.4.20].

8 “In Athens it [marriage] was permitted to a half [sister]; in Alexandria to a full [sister]”
[L .]. Seneca, De morte Claudii \Apokolokyntosis ( The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius)
9.2].

9 Plato makes a similar law. Bk. 3 of the Lam [74ob-c].

10 Aristode, Pol., bk. 2, chap. 7 [1266339-126665].

46

The laws given by the legislator

equality is so difficult to establish that an extreme precision in this
regard would not always be suitable. It suffices to establish a census"
that reduces differences or fixes them at a certain point; after which, it
is the task of particular laws to equalize inequalities, so to speak, by the
burdens they impose on the rich and the relief they afford to the poor.
Only wealth of middling size can give or suffer these kinds of
adjustments, because, for men of immoderate fortunes, all power and
honor not accorded them is regarded as an affront.

Every inequality in a democracy should be drawn from the nature of
democracy and from the very principle of equality. For example, it can
be feared there that people who need steady work for their livelihood
might become too impoverished by a magistracy, or that they might
neglect its functions; that artisans might become arrogant; that too-
numerous freed men might become more powerful than the original
citizens. In these cases, equality among the citizens 12 in the democracy
can be removed for the utility of the democracy. But it is only an
apparent equality that is removed; for a man ruined by a magistracy
would be in a worse condition than the other citizens; and this same
man, who would be obliged to neglect its functions, would put the other
citizens in a condition worse than his, and so forth.

' 1 Solon made four classes: the first, those who had five hundred minas of income, whether
in grain or in liquid products; the second, those who had three hundred and could keep a
horse; the third, those who had only two hundred; the fourth, all those who lived by their
hands. Plutarch [Vit.], Solon [18.1-2].

12 Solon excludes from burdens all those in the fourth census [hundred]. [Plutarch, Vit . ,
Solon 18.2.]

CHAPTER 6

How laws should sustain frugality in democracy

It is not sufficient in a good democracy for the portions of land to be
equal; they must be small, as among the Romans. Curius said to his
soldiers , 13 “God forbid that a citizen should esteem as little that land
which is sufficient to nourish a man.”

As the equality of fortunes sustains frugality, frugality maintains the

"They asked for a larger portion of the conquered land. Plutarch, Moralia, Regum et
imperatorum apophthegmata [194c].

47

Part i

equality of fortunes. These things, although different, are such that
they cannot continue to exist without each other; each is the cause and
the effect; if one of them is withdrawn from democracy, the other
always follows.

Certainly, when democracy is founded on commerce, it may very
well happen that individuals have great wealth, yet that the mores are
not corrupted. This is because the spirit of commerce brings with it the
spirit of frugality, economy, moderation, work, wisdom, tranquillity,
order, and rule. Thus, as long as this spirit continues to exist, the wealth
it produces has no bad effect. The ill comes when an excess of wealth
destroys the spirit of commerce; one sees the sudden rise of the
disorders of inequality which had not made themselves felt before.

In order for the spirit of commerce to be maintained, the principal
citizens must engage in commerce themselves; this spirit must reign
alone and not be crossed by another; all the laws must favor it; these
same laws, whose provisions divide fortunes in proportion as com-
merce increases them, must make each poor citizen comfortable
enough to be able to work as the others do and must bring each rich
citizen to a middle level such that he needs to work in order to preserve
or to acquire.

In a commercial republic, the law giving all children an equal portion
in the inheritance of the fathers is very good. In this way, whatever
fortune the father may have made, his children, always less rich than
he, are led to flee luxury and work as he did. I speak only of commercial
republics, because, for those that are not, the legislator has to make
many other regulations . 14

In Greece there were two sorts of republics. Some were military, like
Lacedaemonia; others, commercial, like Athens. In the former, one
wanted the citizen to be idle; in the latter, one sought to instill a love for
work. Solon made idleness a crime and wanted each citizen to account
for the way he earned his living. Indeed, in a good democracy where
spending should be only for necessities, each person should have them,
for from whom would he receive them?

14 Women’s dowries should be much restricted there.

48

The laws given by the legislator

CHAPTER 7

Other means of favoring the principle of democracy

An equal division of lands cannot be established in all democracies.
There are circumstances in which such an arrangement would be
impractical and dangerous and would even run counter to the constitu-
tion. One is not always obliged to take extreme courses. If one sees that
this division, which should maintain the mores, is not suitable in a
democracy, one must have recourse to other means.

If a fixed body is established that is in itself the rule in mores, a senate
to which age, virtue, gravity and service give entrance, the senators,
who are seen by the people as simulacra of gods, will inspire feelings
that will reach into all families.

The senate must, above all, be attached to the old institutions and
see that the people and the magistrates never deviate from these.

With regard to mores, much is to be gained by keeping the old
customs. Since corrupt peoples rarely do great things and have
established few societies, founded few towns, and given few laws; and
since, on the contrary, those with simple and austere mores have made
most establishments, recalling men to the old maxims usually returns
them to virtue.

Furthermore, if there has been some revolution and one has given
the state a new form, it could scarcely have been done without infinite
pain and work, and rarely with idleness and corrupt mores. The very
ones who made the revolution wanted it to be savored, and they could
scarcely have succeeded in this without good laws. Therefore, the old
institutions are usually correctives, and the new ones, abuses. In a
government that lasts a long time, one descends to ills by imperceptible
degrees, and one climbs back to the good only with an effort.

It has been asked whether the members of the senate of which we are
speaking should be members for life or chosen for a set time. They
should doubtless be chosen for life, as was done in Rome , 15
Lacedaemonia , 16 and even Athens. The senate in Athens, a body that

15

16

There the magistracies were for one year and the senators for life.

“Lycurgus,” says Xenophon, The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians [i 0.1-2], “wanted the
senators elected from among the old men so that they should not be neglected even at the
end of their lives; and by establishing them as judges of the courage of the young people, he
made the old age of the former more honorable than the strength of the latter.”

49

Part i

changed every three months, must not be confused with the Areopa-
gus, whose members were established for life, a permanent model, as it
were.

Here is a general maxim: in a senate made to be the rule, and, so to
speak, the depository of the mores, senators should be elected for life;
in a senate made to plan public business, the senators can change.

The spirit, says Aristotle, ages like the body. This reflection is good
only in regard to a single magistrate and cannot be applied to an
assembly of senators.

Besides the Areopagus, Athens had guardians of the mores and
guardians of the laws . 17 In Lacedaemonia all the old men were censors.
In Rome, two of the magistrates were the censors. Just as the senate
keeps watch over the people, the censors must keep their eyes on the
people and the senate. They must reestablish all that has become
corrupted in the republic, notice slackness, judge oversights, and
correct mistakes just as the laws punish crimes.

The Roman law that wanted the accusation of adultery to be made
public maintained the purity of mores remarkably well; it intimidated
the women and also intimidated those who kept watch over them.

Nothing maintains mores better than the extreme subordination of
the young to the elderly. Both are contained, the former by the respect
they have for the elderly, the latter by the respect they have for
themselves.

Nothing gives greater force to the laws than the extreme subordi-
nation of the citizens to the magistrates. “The great difference
Lycurgus set up between Lacedaemonia and other cities,” says
Xenophon , 18 “consists above all in his having made the citizens obey
the laws; they hasten when the magistrate calls them. But in Athens, a
rich man would despair if one believed him dependent on the
magistrate.”

Paternal authority is also very useful for maintaining mores. We have
already said that none of the forces in a republic is as repressive as those
in other governments. The laws must, therefore, seek to supplement
them; they do so by paternal authority.

In Rome fathers had the right of life and death over their own

17 The Areopagus itself was subject to the censorship.

,8 [Xenophon] The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians [8.2]. [Athens is not explicitly men-
tioned in the original.)

5 °

The laws given by the legislator

children . 19 In Lacedaemonia each father had the right to correct the
child of another.

In Rome paternal power was lost along with the republic. In
monarchies, where there is no question of such pure mores, one wants
each person to live under the power of magistrates.

The laws of Rome, which accustomed young people to dependency,
delayed their coming of age. Perhaps we were wrong to take up this
usage; this much constraint is not needed in a monarchy.

The same subordination in a republic could make it possible for the
father to remain the master of his children’s goods during his life, as
was the rule in Rome. But this is not in the spirit of monarchy.

l9 One can see in Roman history with what advantage to the republic this power was used. I
shall speak only of the time of the greatest corruption. Aulus Fulvius was on his way to find
Catilina; his father called him back and put him to death. Sallust, Catilina [39.5]. Several
other citizens did the same. Cass. Dio [Historia Romano], bk. 37 [37.36.4).

CHAPTER 8

How laws should relate to the principle of the
government in aristocracy

In an aristocracy, if the people are virtuous, they will enjoy almost the
same happiness as in popular government, and the state will become
powerful. But, as it is rare to find much virtue where men’s fortunes are
so unequal, the laws must tend to give, as much as they can, a spirit of
moderation, and they must seek to reestablish the equality necessarily
taken away by the constitution of the state.

The spirit of moderation is what is called virtue in aristocracy; there
it takes the place of the spirit of equality in the popular state.

If the pomp and splendor surrounding kings is a part of their power,
modesty and simplicity of manners are the strength of nobles in an
aristocracy . 20 When the nobles affect no distinction, when they blend

20 In our time the Venetians, who in many respects behaved very wisely, decided in a dispute
between a Venetian nobleman and a gentleman of the mainland over precedence in a
church that, outside of Venice, a Venetian nobleman had no preeminence over another
citizen.

51

Part i

with the people, dress like them, and share all their pleasures with
them, the people forget their own weakness.

Each government has its nature and its principle. The aristocracy
must, therefore, not assume the nature and principle of monarchy,
which would happen if the nobles had any personal and particular
prerogatives distinct from those of the body to which they belong:
privileges should be for the senate, and simple respect for the senators.

There are two principal sources of disorders in aristocratic states:
extreme inequality between those who govern and those who are
governed, and a similar inequality between the different members of
the governing body. Hatreds and jealousies that the laws should
prevent or check result from these two inequalities.

The first inequality is found chiefly when the privileges of the
principal men are considered honorable only because they bring shame
to the people. Such was the law in Rome that prohibited patricians from
marrying plebeians , 21 which had no other effect than to render the
patricians, on the one hand, more haughty, and on the other, more
odious. Witness the advantages the tribunes drew from this in their
harangues.

This inequality will again be found if the conditions of citizens differ
in relation to payments, which happens in four ways: when the nobles
give themselves the privilege of not paying them; when they exempt
themselves fraudulently ; 22 when they recover them for themselves on
the pretext of remunerations or stipends for the tasks they do; finally,
when they make the people their tributaries and divide among them-
selves the imposts they levy upon them. This last case is rare; when it
occurs, an aristocracy is the harshest of all governments.

While Rome leaned toward aristocracy, it avoided these defects very
well. The magistrates never drew stipends from their magistracies.
The principal men of the republic were assessed like all others; they
were assessed even more; and sometimes they were the only ones
assessed. Finally, far from dividing the revenues of the state among
themselves, they distributed all that could be drawn from the public
treasury, all the wealth that fortune sent them, to the people, to be
pardoned for their honors . 23

21 The decemvirs include it in the last two Tables. See Dion. Hal. \Ant. Rom .], bk. io
[10.60.5],

22 As in some aristocracies of our time. Nothing so weakens the state.

23 See in Strabo [Geographica], bk. 14 [14.2.5], how the Rhodians behaved in this respect.

52

The lam given by the legislator

It is a fundamental maxim that distributions made to the people have
pernicious effects in democracy to the same extent that they have good
effects in aristocratic government. The former cause the loss of the
spirit of citizenship/ the latter lead back to it.

If the revenues are not distributed to them, the people must be
shown that they are well administered; displaying them to the people is
a way of letting the people enjoy them. The gold chain that was hung in
Venice, the wealth carried in Rome during the triumphs, and the
treasures kept in the temple of Saturn, all were truly the people’s
wealth.

In aristocracy it is essential above all that the nobles not levy taxes / In
Rome, the highest order of the state had nothing to do with levying
taxes; the second was charged with it, and even that led to serious
drawbacks. If the nobles were to levy taxes in an aristocracy, all private
individuals would be taxed at the discretion of the men concerned with
matters of public business; there would be no higher tribunal to correct
them. The nobles appointed to relieve the abuses would prefer to enjoy
the abuses. Nobles would be like princes of despotic states, who
confiscate the goods of whomever they please.

Soon these profits would be regarded as a patrimony, which avarice
would extend according to its fancy. Tax farming^ would collapse;
public revenues would be reduced to nothing. In this way some states,
without having received an observable setback, fall into a weakness that
surprises their neighbors and stuns the citizens themselves.

The laws must also prohibit nobles from engaging in commerce;
merchants with such rank would set up all sorts of monopolies.
Commerce is the profession of equal people, and the poorest despotic
states are those whose prince is a merchant.

The laws of Venice 24 prohibit nobles from engaging in any com-
merce, for it could give them, even innocently, exorbitant wealth.

The laws should use the most effective means to make the nobles
render justice to the people. If the laws have not established a tribune,
they must themselves be the tribune.

24 [Abraham Nicolas] Amelotde la Houssaye, Htstoire du gouvemement de Ventse, part in [Loix
du gouvemement de Venise , ii; p. 25; 1740 edn]. The Claudian law forbade senators to have
any vessel at sea holding more than forty barrels. Livy, bk. 21 [21 .63].

d esprit de citayen. f les tributs.

1 les fermes. In tax-farming, the job of collecting taxes was given, farmed out, to people
who retained some of the taxes they collected. See 30.19.

53

Part i

Every sort of refuge from the execution of the laws ruins aristocracy,
and tyranny is very near.

The laws should always humble the arrogance of domination. There
must be, for a time or forever, a magistrate to make the nobles tremble,
like the ephors in Lacedaemonia and the state inquisitors in Venice,
whose magistracies are subject to no formalities. This government
needs violent springs: in Venice, a stone mouth 25 is open for every
informer; you might say it is the mouth of tyranny.

These tyrannical magistracies in aristocracies are related to censor-
ship in democracy, which is no less independent by its nature. Indeed,
the censors should not be examined about the things they have done
during their censorship; they must be trusted, never daunted. The
Romans were remarkable; all the magistrates 26 except the censors
could be required to explain their conduct . 27

Two things are pernicious in aristocracy : the extreme poverty of the
nobles and their exorbitant wealth. To curb their poverty, they must
above all be obliged to pay their debts promptly. To moderate their
wealth, provisions must be made that are wise and imperceptible, in
contrast to confiscations, agrarian laws, or the abolition of debts, which
produce infinite evils.

The laws should remove the right of primogeniture from the
nobles 28 so that fortunes are always restored to equality by the continual
division of inheritances.

There must be no substitutions, no redemptions by one of the
lineage, no entailed property, and no adoptions/ The means invented
to perpetuate the greatness of families in monarchical states cannot be
used in aristocracy . 29

When the laws have equalized families, it remains for them to

25 Informers throw their notes into it.

26 See Livy, bk. 49 [45.15.7 — 8). One censor could not even be bothered by another; each
made his notation without consulting his colleague; and when it was done otherwise, the
censorship was, so to speak, overthrown.

27 In Athens, the Logistae, who had all the magistrates give account of themselves, did not do
the same themselves.

28 It is established in this way in Venice. [Abraham Nicolas] Amelot de la Houssaye [Histoire
du gouvemement de Venise], pp. 30-31 [Lois du gouvemement de Venise, xii; 32-34; 1740
edn],

29 It seems that the purpose of some aristocracies is less to maintain the state than to maintain
what they call their nobility.

g Il ne faut point de substitutions, de retraits lignagers, de majorats, d’adoptions.

54

The laws given by the legislator

maintain the union between families. Disagreements among nobles
should be resolved promptly; failing this, disputes between persons
become disputes between families. Arbiters can end proceedings or
keep them from arising.

Finally, the laws must not favor the distinctions that vanity puts
between families on the pretext that some are nobler or older; this
should rank with the pettinesses of private individuals.

One has only to cast an eye at Lacedaemonia; one will see how the
ephors were able to humble the weaknesses of the kings, those of the
important men, and those of the people.

CHAPTER 9

How laws are relative to their principle in monarchy

Since honor is the principle of this government, the laws should relate
to it.

In monarchy they must work to sustain that nobility for whom honor
is, so to speak, both child and father.

They must render it hereditary, not in order to be the boundary
dividing the power of the prince from the weakness of the people, but to
be the bond between them.

Substitutions, which keep goods in families, will be very useful in
this government, though they are not suitable in the others.

Redemption by one of the lineage will return to the noble families the
lands that a prodigal relative has transferred.

Noble lands, like noble persons, will have privileges. One cannot
separate the dignity of the monarch from that of the kingdom; one can
scarcely separate the dignity of the noble from that of his fief.

All these prerogatives will be peculiar to the nobility and will not
transfer to the people, unless one wants to run counter to the principle
of the government, unless one wants to diminish the force of the
nobility and the force of the people.

Substitutions hamper commerce; redemption by one of the lineage
makes an infinite number of proceedings necessary; and all the lands
that are sold in the kingdom are more or less without a landlord for at
least a year. Prerogatives attached to fiefs give a very burdensome
power to those who hold them. These are the peculiar drawbacks of a

55

Part i

nobility, which disappear in the face of the general utility it procures.
But if these are extended to the people, one uselessly runs counter to all
principles.

In monarchies, a man can be permitted to leave most of his goods to
one of his children; this permission is good only there.

The laws must favor all the commerce 30 that the constitution of this
government can allow, so that the subjects can, without being ruined,
satisfy the ever-recurring needs of the prince and his court.

The laws must put a certain order in the manner of levying taxes so
that the manner is not heavier than the burdens themselves.

The weight of burdens at first produces work; work, dejection;
dejection, the spirit of laziness.

30 The constitution permits commerce only to the people. See Law 3 in the Code [Corpus
Juris Civilis, Code 4.63.3]; de commerciis el mercatoribus, which is full of good sense.

CHAPTER 10

On the promptness of execution in monarchy

Monarchical government has a great advantage over republican; as
public business is led by one alone, execution is more prompt. But,
since this promptness could degenerate into haste, here the laws will
introduce a certain slowness. They should not only favor the nature of
each constitution, but also remedy the abuses that can result from this
same nature.

In monarchies Cardinal Richelieu 31 wants one to avoid the intrica-
cies of corporations, which form difficulties at every point. Even if this
man’s heart was not filled with despotism, his head was.

The bodies that are the depository of the laws never obey better than
when they drag their feet and bring into the prince’s business the
reflection that one can hardly expect from the absence of enlighten-
ment in the court concerning the laws of the state and the haste of the
prince’s councils . 32

What would have become of the finest monarchy in the world if the

31 [Cardinal Richelieu] Testament politique (pt. 1, chap. 4, sec. 2; 243-247; 1947 edn).
32,I For the barbarians, to delay is servile; immediate execution is proper to a king” [L.].
Tacitus, Annales, bk. 5 (6.32],

56

The lam given by the legislator

magistrates, by their slowness, their complaints, and their prayers, had
not checked the course of even the virtues of its kings, when these
monarchs, consulting only their generous souls, wanted to reward
boundlessly services that were rendered with a similarly boundless
courage and fidelity?

CHAPTER 1 1

On the excellence of monarchical government

Monarchical government has a great advantage over despotic. As it is in
its nature to have under the prince several orders dependent on the
constitution, the state is more fixed, the constitution more unshakable,
and the persons of those who govern more assured.

Cicero 33 believes that the establishment of tribunes in Rome saved
the republic. “Indeed,” he says, “the force of the people without a
leader is more terrible. A leader feels that the business turns on him, he
thinks about it; but the people in their impetuosity do not know the peril
into which they throw themselves.” One can apply this reflection to a
despotic state, where the people have no tribunes, and to a monarchy,
where the people do, in a way, have tribunes.

Indeed, one sees everywhere in the activities of despotic government
that the people, led by themselves, always carry things as far as they can
go; all the disorder they commit is extreme; whereas, in monarchies,
things are very rarely carried to excess. The leaders fear for themselves;
they fear being abandoned; the intermediate dependent powers 34 do
not want the people to have the upper hand too much. Rarely are the
orders of the state entirely corrupted. The prince depends on these
orders; seditious men, who have neither the will nor the expectation of
overturning the state, have neither the power nor the will to overthrow
the prince.

In these circumstances, people of wisdom and authority intervene;
temperings are proposed, agreements are reached, corrections are
made; the laws become vigorous again and make themselves heard.

Thus all our histories are full of civil wars without revolutions; those
of despotic states are full of revolutions without civil wars.

33 [Cicero] De legibus, bk. 3 [3.10.23]. 34 See above, bk. 2, chap. 4, n. 22.

57

Part i

Those who have written the history of the civil war of some states,
even those who have fomented them, have sufficiently proven how
rarely princes should be suspicious of the authority they leave to certain
orders in return for their service, for, even in their frenzy, these orders
have longed only for the laws and their duty and have slowed the ardor
and impetuousity of factious men more than they were able to serve
them . 35

Cardinal Richelieu, thinking perhaps that he had degraded the
orders of the state too much, has recourse to the virtues of the prince
and his ministers to sustain it , 36 and he requires so many things of them
that, in truth, only an angel could have so much care, so much
enlightenment, so much firmness, and so much knowledge; one can
scarcely flatter oneself that, between now and the dissolution of
monarchies, there could ever be such a prince and such ministers.

Just as the peoples who live under a good police* are happier than
those who run about in the forest, without rule and without leaders, so
monarchs who live under the fundamental laws of their state are
happier than despotic princes, who have nothing to rule their people’s
hearts or their own.

35 Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz and other histories.

[Cardinal Richelieu] Testament politique [pt. i, chap. 6, sec. 8; 1947 edn].

*See note r , bk. 4.

CHAPTER 12

Continuation of the same subject

Let one not seek magnanimity in despotic states; there, the prince
could not give a greatness that he himself does not have: there is no
glory there.

In monarchies one sees the subjects around the prince receive his
light; there, as each one has, so to speak, a larger space, he can exercise
those virtues that give the soul not independence but greatness.

58

The laws given by the legislator

chapter 13

The idea of despotism

When the savages of Louisiana want fruit, they cut down the tree and
gather the fruit . 37 There you have despotic government.

37 Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, bk. 2, p. 3 1 5 [Lettre du P. Gabriel Marest, Cascaskias, Illinois,
November 9, 1712; vol. 11, 315; 1715 edn].

CHAPTER 14

How the laws are relative to the principle of despotic
government

Despotic government has fear as its principle; and not many laws jire
needed for timid, ignorant, beaten-down people.

Everything should turn on two or three ideas; therefore, there must
be no new ones. When you instruct a beast you take great care not to let
him change masters, training, or gait; you stamp his brain with two or
three impulses and no more.

When the prince is enclosed, he cannot end his stay among sensual
pleasures without distressing all those who keep him there. They
cannot allow his person and his power to pass into other hands.
Therefore, he rarely wages war in person and scarcely dares have it
waged by his lieutenants.

Such a prince, accustomed to meeting no resistance in his palace,
becomes insulted at that offered him by armed men; he is, therefore,
usually moved by anger or vengeance. Besides, he cannot have an idea
of true glory. Therefore, wars have to be waged there in all their natural
fury, and the right of nations has to be less extensive than elsewhere.

Such a prince has so many faults that one must fear exposing his
natural foolishness to the light of day. He is hidden, and one remains in
ignorance of his condition. Fortunately, men in these countries are
such that they need only a name to govern them.

Charles XII, meeting some resistance in the senate of Sweden while
he was at Bender, wrote that he would send one of his boots to
command it. The boot would have governed like a despotic king.

59

Part j

If the prince is taken prisoner, he is supposed dead, and another
ascends the throne. The treaties made by the prisoner are null; his
successor would not ratify them. Indeed, as he is the laws, the state, and
the prince, and as from the moment he is no longer the prince, he is
nothing, if he were not considered dead, the state would be destroyed.

One of the things that led the Turks to decide to make their separate
peace with Peter I was that the Muscovites told the vizir that in Sweden
another king had been put on the throne . 38

The preservation of the state is only the preservation of the prince, or
rather of the palace in which he is enclosed. Nothing which does not
directly menace the palace or the capital makes an impression on
ignorant, arrogant, and biased minds; and, as for the sequence of
events, they cannot follow it, foresee it, or even think about it. Politics
with its springs and laws should here be very limited, and political
government is as simple as civil government . 39

Everything comes down to reconciling political and civil government
with domestic government, the officers of the state with those of the
seraglio.

Such a state will be in the best situation when it is able to consider
itself as alone in the world, when it is surrounded by deserts and
separated from the peoples it calls barbarians. It will be good for the
despotism, unable to count on the militia, to destroy a part of itself.

While the principle of despotic government is fear, its end is
tranquillity; but this is not a peace, it is the silence of the towns that the
enemy is ready to occupy.

Since force is not in the state but in the army that has founded it, that
army must be preserved in order to defend the state; however, it is
dangerous to the prince. How then is the security of the state to be
reconciled with the security of the person?

I beg you to observe with what industry the Muscovite government
seeks to escape the despotism which weighs on the government even
more than it does on the peoples. Great bodies of troops have been
disbanded; penalties for crimes have been lessened; tribunals have

38 Continuation of Pufendorf, Histoire universelle, in the article on Sweden, chap. to. [This is
in PufendorPs Histoire de Suede-, 171 1; 3, 125; 1748 edn, not Introduction a I'histoire generate
et politique de Tunivers; the boot story’ is told in Voltaire’s Histoire du Charles XII, Book 7.)

39 According to [John] Chardin [Voyages, “Description du gouvemement . . . des Persans,”
chap. 3, “De l’economie politique”; 5, 237; 1811 edn], there is no Council of State in
Persia.

60

The laws given by the legislator

been established; some men have begun to be versed in the laws; the
peoples have been instructed. But there are particular causes that will
perhaps return it to the misfortune it had wanted to flee.

In these states, religion has more influence than in any other; it is a
fear added to fear. In Mohammedan empires the peoples derive from
religion a part of the astonishing respect they have for their prince.

It is religion that slightly corrects the Turkish constitution. Those
subjects who are not attached to the glory and greatness of the state by
honor are attached to it by force and by religious principle.

Of all despotic governments, none is more oppressive to itself than
the one whose prince declares himself owner of all the land and heir to
all his subjects. This always results in abandoning the cultivation of the
land and, if the prince is a merchant, in ruining every kind of industry.

In these states, nothing is repaired, nothing improved. 40 Houses are
built only for a lifetime; one digs no ditches, plants no trees; one draws
all from the land, and returns nothing to it; all is fallow, all is deserted.

Do you think that laws that take away ownership of land and
inheritance of goods will diminish the avarice and cupidity of the
important men? No: such laws will excite their cupidity and avarice.
The important men will be led to take a thousand oppressive measures
because they will not consider anything their own but the gold or silver
that they can steal or hide.

In order that all not be lost, it is well to moderate the greediness of
the prince by some custom. Thus, in Turkey, the prince is usually
satisfied to take 3 per cent from the inheritances of the people. 41 But, as
the Grand Signior gives most of the land to his militia and disposes of it
according to his fancy, as he seizes all the inheritances of the officers of
the empire, as, when a man dies without male children, the Grand
Signior becomes the owner and the daughters have only the usufruct, it
happens that most of the goods of the state are held in precarium.

According to a law of Bantam, 42 the king takes the inheritance,

^See [Paul] Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire , p. 196 [bk. 1,
chap. 17, pp. 29-30; 1703 edn],

41 Concerning inheritances among the Turks, see [Georges Guillet de Saint-Georges)
Lacedemone ancienne et nouvelle [bk. 3; p. 463; 1676 edn]. See also [Paul] Rycaut, The
History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire [bk. 1, chap. 16; p. 28; 1703 edn].

42 Recueil des voyages qui ont semi a I’etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, vol. 1 [“Premiers
voiages des Hollandais aux Indes Orientales”; 1, 384; 1702 edn; 1, 348; 1725 edn]. The

'd’une maniere precaire. This is a technical term for “obtained by entreaty or favor.”

6l

Part i

including the wife, the children, and the house. In order to elude the
most cruel provision of this law, one is obliged to marry children at the
age of eight, nine, or ten, and sometimes even younger, so that they do
not remain an unfortunate part of the father’s inheritance.

In states where there are no fundamental laws, the inheritance of the
empire cannot be fixed. The prince elects from within his family or
from outside it the one who is to wear the crown. It would be vain to
establish inheritance by the eldest; the prince could always choose
another. The successor is declared either by the prince himself, by his
ministers, or by a civil war. Thus, this state has one more reason for
dissolution than a monarchy.

As each prince of the royal family is equally entitled to be elected, it
happens that the one who ascends to the throne immediately has his
brothers strangled, as in Turkey; or blinded, as in Persia; or driven
mad, as with the Moguls; and, if these precautions are not taken, as in
Morocco, each time the throne is vacated a horrible civil war follows.

According to the constitutions of Muscovy , 43 the czar can choose
whomever he wants as his successor, either from within his family or
from outside it. The establishment of such a succession causes a
thousand revolutions and renders the throne as unsteady as the
succession is arbitrary. As one of the most important things for the
people to know is the order of succession, the best one is that which is
most obvious, such as birth and a certain order of birth. Such a
provision checks intrigues and stifles ambition; the spirit of a weak
prince is no longer captive, and the dying are not made to speak.

When a fundamental law establishes the order of succession, one
prince alone is the successor, and his brothers have no real or apparent
right to contend for the crown. One can neither presume nor bring to
bear a particular will of the father. It is, therefore, no more a question of
checking the king’s brother or of killing him than it is of checking or
killing any other subject at all.

But in despotic states, where the prince’s brothers are equally his
slaves and his rivals, prudence requires that they be imprisoned,
especially in Mohammedan countries, where the religion regards

law of Pegu is less cruel: if one has children, the king inherits only two-thirds. Ibid., vol. 3,
p. 1 [“Second voiage d’Etienne van der Hagan,” 3, 73; 1705 edn; 3, 69; 1725 edn].
43 See the different constitutions, particularly that of 1 7 2 2 . [Polnoe sobranie zakovov Rossiiskoi
imperii s 1649 goda, n0 - 3 ^ 93 > February 5, 1722, 6, 496-497; 1830 edn.]

62

The laws given by the legislator

victory or success as a judgment of god, so that no one is sovereign
there by right, but only in fact.

In states where the princes of the blood see that they will be enclosed
or put to death if they do not ascend to the throne, ambition is excited
much more than among ourselves, where princes of the blood enjoy a
condition which, though not as satisfying to ambition, is perhaps more
satisfying to moderate desires.

In despotic states princes have always abused marriage. They usually
take several wives, especially in that part of the world, Asia, where
despotism is, so to speak, naturalized. They have so many children that
they can scarcely have any affection for them, nor can the children have
any for their brothers.

The reigning family resembles the state; it is too weak, and its leader
is too strong; it seems extensive, and it amounts to nothing. Arta-
xerxes 44 had all his children murdered for having plotted against him. It
is not credible that fifty children would conspire against their father,
and still less that they would conspire because he had refused to yield
his concubine to his eldest son. It is simpler to believe that this was
some intrigue in those seraglios of the East, those places where artifice,
wickedness, and deceit reign in silence and are covered by the darkness
of night, where an old prince who becomes more imbecilic every day is
the first prisoner of the palace.

After all we have just said, it seems that human nature would rise up
incessantly against despotic government. But, despite men’s love of
liberty, despite their hatred of violence, most peoples are subjected to
this type of government. This is easy to understand. In order to form a
moderate government, one must combine powers, regulate them,
temper them, make them act; one must give one power a ballast, so to
speak, to put it in a position to resist another; this is a masterpiece of
legislation that chance rarely produces and prudence is rarely allowed
to produce. By contrast, a despotic government leaps to view, so to
speak; it is uniform throughout; as only passions are needed to establish
it, everyone is good enough for that.

44 See Justin [Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum io.i].

63

Part i

CHAPTER 15

Continuation of the same subject

In hot climates, where despotism usually reigns, passions make them-
selves felt earlier and are also deadened sooner ; 45 the spirit ages more
quickly; the perils of dissipating one’s goods are not as great; it is not as
easy to distinguish oneself, and there is not as much commerce among
the young, who are shut in at home; one marries younger; one can,
therefore, come of age earlier than in our European climates. In
Turkey, one reaches majority at the age of fifteen . 46

The surrender of goods has no place there ; 7 in a government where
no one is assured of his fortune, one’s lending is based on persons
rather than on goods.

This surrender enters by nature into moderate governments , 47 and
above all into republics, because there one should have greater trust in
the citizens’ integrity and because of the gentleness that should be
inspired by a form of government that each seems to have given to
himself.

If the legislators in the Roman republic had established the sur-
render of goods , 48 Rome would not have been thrown into so many
seditions aft d civil discords and would have risked neither the dangers
of those ills nor the perils of the remedies.

Poverty and the uncertainty of fortunes naturalizes usury in despotic
states, as each one increases the price of his silver in proportion to the
peril involved in lending it. Therefore, destitution is omnipresent in
these unhappy countries; there everything is taken away including the
recourse to borrowing.*

It follows that a merchant cannot engage in much commerce there;

45 See (bk. 14], “On the laws in relation to the nature of the climate.”

^[Georges] Guillet de Saint-Georges, Lacedemone ancienne et nouvelle [bk. 3], p. 463 [1676
edn].

47 It is the same for extensions of credit in surrenders of goods [bankruptcies] in good faith.

48 It was established only by the Julian law , De cessione bonorum\ one avoided prison and the
ignominious surrenders of one’s goods. [See Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 7.71.4; qui bonis
cedere possum. See also Gaius, Institutes 3.78; this passage, however, was certainly unknown
to M., for the manuscript containing it was not discovered until 1816 by Niebuhr. M.
presumes, as we do today, that this is one ofjulius Caesar’s laws on the debtor problem.]

1 cession des biens.

*See 22.19 (note bk. 22) for a distinction between interest and usury.

64

The laws given by the legislator

he lives from day to day; if he burdened himself with many commodi-
ties, he would lose more on the interest owed on the purchase than he
would make on the commodities. Thus the laws of commerce scarcely
apply there; these laws amount only to a simple police.

Government could not be unjust without hands to exercise its
injustices; now, it is impossible for these hands not to be used on their
own behalf. Therefore, embezzlement is natural in despotic states.

As this is the ordinaiy crime there, confiscations are useful. In this
way the people are consoled; the silver from confiscations amounts to a
substantial tax that the prince would find difficult to levy on his
downtrodden subjects; there is not even any family in this country one
wants to preserve.

In moderate states, it is entirely different. Confiscations would
render the ownership of goods uncertain; they would despoil innocent
children; they would destroy a family man when it was only a question
of punishing a guilty man. In republics, confiscations would have the ill
effect of taking away the equality which is their soul, by depriving a
citizen of his physical necessities . 49

A Roman law 50 wants confiscation in only the most serious case of
the crime of high treason. It would often be very wise to follow the spirit
of this law and limit confiscation to certain crimes. In those countries
where local custom has made provision for goods by inheritance, as
Bodin 51 aptly states, one must confiscate only those that are acquired.'

49 It seems to me that confiscations were too much loved in the republic of Athens.
so Authentic, Bona damnatorum, Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 9.49. i o; Novel. 134,0.13); de
bonis proscriptorum seu damnatorum.

51 [jean Bodin, The Six Books of a Commonwealth ] bk. 5, chap. 3 [bk. 5, chap. 3; p. 581; 1962
edn).

1 propres and acqueles.

CHAPTER l6

On the communication of power

In despotic government, power passes entirely into the hands of the one
to whom it is entrusted. The vizir is the despot himself, and each
individual officer is the vizir. In monarchical government, power is not

65

Part i

applied without some mediation; the monarch, in giving it, tempers it . 52
He distributes his authority in such a way that he never gives a part
without retaining a greater part.

Thus, in monarchical states individual governors of towns are not so
answerable to the governor of the province as not to be even more
answerable to the prince, and individual officers of military units are
not so dependent upon the general as not to have an even greater
dependence upon the prince.

In most monarchical states it has wisely been established that those
whose command is somewhat extensive are not attached to any body of
militia, with the result that, as their command derives only from the
particular will of the prince, who employs them or not, they are, in a
way, in service and, in a way, outside it.

This is incompatible with despotic government. For, if those who
had no current employment nevertheless had prerogatives and titles,
there would be men in the state who were great in themselves, and this
would run counter to the nature of this government.

If the governor of a town were independent of the pasha, there would
have to be constant temperings to accommodate the two of them, an
absurdity in a despotic government. And, in addition, if an individual
governor could disobey, how could the pasha personally answer for his
province? , .

In this government authority cannot be counter-balanced; neither
that of the lowest magistrate nor that of the despot. In moderate
countries law is everywhere wise; it is known everywhere, and the
lowest of the magistrates can follow it. But in despotism, where law is
only the will of the prince, even if the prince is wise, how can a
magistrate follow a will that he does not know? He must follow his own.

Furthermore, as law is only what the prince wants, and the prince is
able to want only what he knows, surely there must be an infinite
number of people who want in his name and in the same way he does.

Finally, as law is the momentary will of the prince, those who want in
his name necessarily want instantly as he does.

S2 “The light of Phoebus is usually sweeter/ As it sets” [L.]. [Seneca, Tragedies, Troades
it. 1 140-1 141.]

66

The laws given by the legislator

CHAPTER 17

On presents

In despotic countries the usage is that one does not approach a
superior, even a king, without giving him a present. The emperor of the
Moguls 53 does not accept requests from his subjects unless he has
received something from them. These princes go so far as to corrupt
their own pardons.

It should be this way in a government where no one is a citizen, in a
government where one is filled with the idea that the superior owes
nothing to the inferior, in a government where men believe themselves
bound only by the chastisements that the former give the latter, in a
government where there is little public business and where one is rarely
introduced into the presence of an important man to request something
of him, and even more rarely to complain to him.

Presents are an odious thing in a republic because virtue has no need
of them. In a monarchy, honor is a stronger motive than presents. But
in the despotic state, where there is neither honor nor virtue, one can
decide to act only in anticipation of the comforts of life.

In accordance with his ideas about the republic, Plato 54 wanted those
who received presents for doing their duty to be punished by death. One
must not accept them , he states, either for good things or for bad.

It was a bad law of the Romans 55 that permitted magistrates to accept
small presents 56 provided they did not exceed one hundred ecus per
year. Those to whom nothing is given desire nothing; those to whom a
little is given soon desire a little more and then a great deal. Besides, it is
easier to convict the one who ought to take nothing but takes something
than it is to convict the one who takes more when he ought to take less
and who always finds plausible pretexts, excuses, causes and reasons
for doing so.

^Recueil da voyaga qui ont servi a Vetablissement de la Compagnie da Inda, vol. 1 , p. 80 [“Avis
sur le Commerce des Indes Orientates. Description de leur maniere de vivre”; 1,
lxxxviii; 1725 edn].

54 [Plato] Lams , bk. 12 [9550-d].

“Law 6, par. 2, Digat [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digat 48.11.6.2]; de lege Julia repetundarum.

56 Munuscula: “A small gift.”

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Part i

CHAPTER l8

On rewards given by the sovereign

In despotic governments, where, as we have said, one decides to act
only in anticipation of the comforts of life, the prince who gives rewards
has only silver to give. In a monarchy, where honor alone reigns, the
prince would reward only with distinctions were it not that the
distinctions established by honor are joined with a luxury that necess-
arily produces needs; therefore, the prince rewards with honors that
lead to fortune. But in a republic under the reign of virtue, a motive that
suffices in itself and excludes all others, the state rewards only with
testimonies to that virtue.

It is a general rule that great rewards in a monarchy and a republic
are a sign of their decadence because they prove that the principles
have been corrupted: on the one hand, the idea of honor no longer has
as much force, on the other, citizenship has been weakened ." 1

The worst Roman emperors were those who gave the most: for
example, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Commodus,
Heliogabulus, and Caracalla. The best, such as Augustus, Vespasian,
Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Pertinax, were frugal. Under
the good emperors, the state regained its principles; the treasure of
honor replaced other treasures.

m qualitc de citoyen.

CHAPTER 19

New consequences of the principles of the three governments

I cannot bring myself to finish this book without making some further
applications of my three principles.

first question. Should the laws force a citizen to accept public
employments? I say that they should in republican government and not
in monarchical. In the former, magistracies are testimonies to virtue;
they are depositories entrusted by the homeland to a citizen who should
live, act, and think only for its sake; he cannot, therefore, refuse them . 57

57 Plato, in his Republic , bk, 8 [557c], puts such refusals among the marks of corruption of the

68

The lam given by the legislator

In the latter, magistracies are testimonies to honor; now, such is the
eccentricity of honor that it is pleased to accept magistracies only when
it wants and in the manner it wants.

The late king of Sardinia 58 punished those who refused the dignities
and employments of his state; unwittingly he followed republican ideas.
His manner of governing, however, proves sufficiently that this was not
his intention.

second question. Is it a good maxim whereby a citizen can be
obliged to accept a place in the army below one he has previously held?
Among the Romans the captain often served the next year under his
lieutenant . 59 This is because virtue here asks for the continuous
sacrifice to the state of oneself and one’s aversions. But in monarchies,
honor, true or false, cannot suffer that which it calls degradation.

In despotic governments where honor, posts, and ranks are equally
abused, it is indifferent whether a lout is made from a prince or a prince
from a lout.

third question. Shall civil and military employments be given
to one person? They must be united in a republic and separated in a
monarchy. In republics it would be very dangerous to make the
profession of arms a particular estate distinct from that of civil
functions; and, in monarchies, there would be no less peril in giving the
two functions to the same person.

One takes up arms, in the republic, only to defend the laws and the
homeland; it is because one is a citizen that one becomes, for a time, a
soldier. If these were two distinct estates, the one who bore arms and
believed himself a citizen would come to feel he was only a soldier.

In monarchies, the object of men of war is only glory, or at least
honor or fortune. One should be very careful not to give civil employ-
ments to such men; they must, on the contrary, be contained by civil
magistrates, and they must not have at the same time both the people’s
trust and the force to abuse it . 60

republic. In his Laws, bk. 6 [756b-e], he wants to punish them by a fine. In Venice, they are
punished by exile.

S8 Victor Amedeus (Victor Amedeus II, 1666-1732].

59 When some centurions asked the people what employments they had had, one centurion
said, “It is just, my companions, for you to esteem as honorable any post in which you
defend the republic,” Livy, bk. 42 [42.34.15].

““Lest political power be transferred to the best of the nobles, Gallienus forbade the senate
military service, and even entry to the army” [L.]. Aurelius Victor, De viris illustribus [, De
Caesanbus 33.34}.

69

Part i

In a nation where the republic hides under the form of monarchy,
observe how a particular estate for fighting men is feared and how the
warrior still remains a citizen or even a magistrate, so that these titles
serve as a pledge to the homeland so that it is never forgotten.

That division of the magistracies into civil and military ones, which
the Romans made after the loss of the republic, was not arbitrary. It
followed from a change in the Roman constitution; it was in the nature
of monarchical government. And in order to temper the military
government, the emperors that succeeded Augustus 61 were obliged to
finish what he had only begun . 62

Thus Procopius, rival of Valens for the empire, failed to grasp this
when, giving the dignity of proconsul 63 to Hormisdas, prince of the
royal blood of Persia, he returned to this magistracy its former
command of the armies; but perhaps he had particular reasons for this.
A man who aspires to sovereignty seeks what is useful to the state less
than what is useful to his cause.

fourth question. Is it suitable for posts to be sold? They
should not be sold in despotic states, where the prince must place or
displace subjects in an instant.

Venality is good in monarchical states, because it provides for
performing as a family vocation what one would not want to undertake
for virtue, and because it destines each to his duty and renders the
orders of the stafe more permanent. Suidas 64 aptly says that Anastasius
had made a kind of aristocracy of the empire by selling all the
magistracies.

Plato 65 cannot endure such venality. “It is,” he says, “as if, on a ship,
one made someone a pilot or a sailor for his silver. Is it possible that the
rule is good only for guiding a republic and bad in all other life
employments?” But Plato is speaking of a republic founded on virtue,
and we are speaking of a monarchy. Now, in a monarchy, where, if the
posts were not sold by a public regulation, the courtiers’ indigence and
avidity would sell them all the same, chance will produce better

61 Augustus removed from the senators, proconsuls, and governors, the right to bear arms.

Cass. Dio [Historia Romana], bk. 33 [53.12.2-3).

62 Constantine. See Zosimus [Historiae], bk. 2 [2.33].

63 “In accord with ancient custom and the rule of war” [L.]. Ammianus Marcellinus [/te
gestae], bk. 26 [26.8.12].

64 Fragments drawn from th tAtnbassades of Constantine Porphyrogenitus [Suidas, Lexicon ,
“Anastasios,” 1, 187; 1938 edn).

65 [Plato] Republic, bk. 8 [551c].

70

The laws given by the legislator

subjects than the choice of the prince. Finally, advancing oneself by
way of wealth inspires and maintains industry , 66 a thing badly needed in
this kind of government.

fifth question. In which government must there be censors?
There must be censors in a republic where the principle of government
is virtue. It is not only crimes that destroy virtue, but also negligence,
mistakes, a certain slackness in the love of the homeland, dangerous
examples, the seeds of corruption, that which does not run counter to
the laws but eludes them, that which does not destroy them but
weakens them: all these should be corrected by censors.

It is astonishing that an Areopagite was punished for killing a
sparrow that had taken refuge in his breast while in flight from a hawk.
It is surprising that the Areopagus sent to his death a child who had put
out the eyes of a bird. Notice that the question is not that of
condemning a crime but of judging mores in a republic founded on
mores.

In monarchies there must be no censors; monarchies are founded on
honor, and the nature of honor is to have the whole universe as a
censor. Every man who commits a breach of honor is subject to the
reproaches of even those without honor.

There censors would be spoiled by the very men they ought to
correct. Their opposition to the corruption of a monarchy would do no
good; the corruption of a monarchy would be too strong for them.

It is manifest that there must be no censors in despotic governments.
The example of China seems to be an exception to this rule, but in the
course of this work we shall see the singular reasons for its establish-
ment there.

66 Laziness of Spain: all employments there are given out.

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BOOK 6

Consequences of the principles of
the various governments in relation to
the simplicity of civil and criminal laws,
the form of judgments, and the
establishment of penalties

CHAPTER I

On the simplicity of civil laws in the various governments

Monarchical government does not admit of such simple laws as does
despotic government. In monarchical government there must be
tribunals. These tribunals give decisions. These decisions should be
preserved; they should be learned, so that one judges there today as one
judged yesterday and so that the citizens’ property and life are as secure
and fixed as the very constitution of the state.

In a monarchy, the administering of a justice" that hands down
decisions not only about life and goods, but also about honor, requires
scrupulous inquiries. The fastidiousness of the judge grows as more
issues are deposited 4 with him and as he pronounces upon greater
interests.

In the laws of these states, therefore, one must not be astonished to
find so many rules, restrictions, and extensions that multiply particular
cases and seem to make an art of reasoning itself.

The differences in rank, origin, and condition that are established in
monarchical government often carry with them distinctions in the
nature of men’s goods, and the laws regarding the constitution of this
state can increase the number of these distinctions. Thus, among
ourselves, goods are inherited, acquired, or seized; dotal, paraphernal;
paternal and maternal; those of personal estates of several kinds; free,

"See note bk. 2 . h See note-', bk. 2.

72

Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

substituted; those of the lineage or not; noble, freely held, or common
goods; ground rents, or those given a price in silver. Each sort of goods
is subject to particular rules; these must be followed in order to make
disposition of the goods, which further removes simplicity.

In our governments fiefs became hereditary. The nobility had to
have had a certain standing so that the owner of a fief would be in a
position to serve the prince. This produced many variations; for
example, there are countries in which fiefs could not be divided among
brothers; in others, younger brothers could receive a more extensive
provision of their own.

The monarch, who knows each of his provinces, can set up various
laws or permit different customs. But the despot knows nothing and
can attend to nothing; he must approach everything in a general way; he
governs with a rigid will that is the same in all circumstances; all is
flattened beneath his feet.

In monarchies, in proportion to the number of judgments made by
tribunals, jurisprudence is responsible for decisions that are sometimes
inconsistent, because successive judges think differently, or because
suits are sometimes well and sometimes poorly defended, or finally,
because an infinity of abuses slips into whatever is touched by the hands
of men. This is a necessary ill that the legislator corrects from time to
time, as being an ill that is contrary even to the spirit of moderate
governments. For when one is obliged to turn to the tribunals, it must
be because of the nature of the constitution and not because of the
inconsistency and uncertainty of the laws.

There must be privileges in governments where there are necessarily
distinctions between persons. This further diminishes simplicity and
produces a thousand exceptions.

One of the privileges least burdensome to society and least of all to
him who gives it is that of being allowed to plead before one tribunal
rather than another. Otherwise there are new suits, that is, those which
seek to ascertain the tribunal before which one must plead.

The peoples in despotic states present a very different case. I do not
know on what matter the legislator could enact or the magistrate judge
in these countries. It follows from the fact that the lands belong to the
prince that there are scarcely any civil laws concerning the ownership of
lands. It follows from the sovereign’s right to inherit that there are no
laws concerning inheritance. Because trade belongs exclusively to the
despot in some countries, all sorts of laws concerning commerce are

73

Part i

rendered useless. Because marriages are contracted there with female
slaves, there are scarcely any civil laws about dowries or the privileges
of wives. Another result of the prodigious multitude of slaves there is
that scarcely anyone has a will of his own, and consequently scarcely
anyone is answerable for his conduct before a judge. Most moral
actions, which are nothing but the wills of the father, the husband, or
the master, are regulated by them and not by magistrates.

I have almost forgotten to say that since what we call honor is scarcely
known in these states, suits concerning honor, such an important
subject among us, do not arise there. Despotism is self-sufficient;
everything around it is empty. Thus when travelers describe countries
to us where despotism reigns, they rarely speak of civil laws . 1

Therefore, all occasions for disputes and proceedings are taken away
there. This is, in part, what makes pleaders so mistreated; the injustice
of their request appears baldly, being neither hidden, mitigated, nor
protected by an infinity of laws.

1 No written law has been discovered in Mazulipatam. See the Recueil des voyages qui one servi
a I’etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, vol. 4, pt. i, p. 391 [“Voyage de Pierre Van den
Broeck”; 4,420; 1705 edn; 4, 392; 1725 edn]. In judgments, the Indians go only by certain
customs. The Veda and other such books contain religious precepts but not civil laws.
Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, 14 [Lettre du P. Bouchet, Pontichery, October 2, 1714; 14,
326-332; 1720 edn].

'

CHAPTER 2

On the simplicity of criminal laws in the various
governments

It is constantly said that justice should be rendered everywhere as it is in
Turkey. Can it be that the most ignorant of all peoples have seen clearly
the one thing in the world that it is most important for men to know?

If you examine the formalities of justice in relation to the difficulties
a citizen endures to have his goods returned to him or to obtain
satisfaction for some insult, you will doubtless find the formalities too
many; if you consider them in their relation to the liberty and security of
the citizens, you will often find them too few, and you will see that the
penalties, expenses, delays, and even the dangers of justice are the
price each citizen pays for his liberty.

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

In Turkey, where one pays very little attention to the fortune, life, or
honor of the subjects, all disputes are speedily concluded in one way or
another. The manner of ending them is not important, provided that
thev are ended. The pasha is no sooner informed than he has the
pleaders bastinadoed according to his fancy and sends them back
home.

And, for one to have the passions of pleaders would be quite
dangerous there; these passions presuppose an ardent desire to see
justice done, a hatred, an active spirit, and a steadfastness in pursuit of
justice. All this should be avoided in a government where there must be
no feeling other than fear and where everything leads abruptly and
unforeseeably to revolutions. Each man should know that the
magistrate must not hear of him and that he owes his safety only to his
nothingness.

But in moderate states where the head of even the lowest citizen is
esteemed, his honor and goods are removed from him only after long
examination; he is deprived of his life only when the homeland itself
attacks it; and when the homeland attacks his life, it gives him every
possible means of defending it.

Thus, when a man makes himself more absolute , 2 his first thought is
to simplify the laws. In these states he begins by being struck more by
particular drawbacks than by the liberty of the subjects, with which he is
not concerned.

One can see that there must be at least as many formalities in
republics as in monarchies. In both governments, formalities increase
in proportion to the importance given to the honor, fortune, life, and
liberty of the citizens.

Men are all equal in republican government; they are equal in
despotic government; in the former, it is because they are everything; in
the latter, it is because they are nothing.

2 Caesar, Cromwell, and so many others.

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Part i

C H APTER 3

In which governments and in which cases one should judge
according to a precise text of the law

The more the government approaches a republic, the more the manner
of judging becomes fixed; and it was a vice of the Lacedaemonian
republic that the ephors judged arbitrarily without laws to guide them.
In Rome, the first consuls judged like the ephors; the drawbacks of this
were felt, and precise laws were made.

In despotic states there is no law; the judge himself is the rule. In
monarchical states there is a law; and, when it is precise, the judge
follows it; when it is not, he seeks its spirit. In republican government, it
is in the nature of the constitution for judges to follow the letter of the
law. No law can be interpreted to the detriment of a citizen when it is a
question of his goods, his honor, or his life.

In Rome, judges pronounced only that the accused was guilty of a
certain crime, and the penalty was found in the law, as can be seen from
various laws that were made. In England likewise, the jury decides
whether the accused is guilty or not of the deed brought before it; and,
if he is declared guilty, the judge pronounces the penalty imposed by
law foj this deed; and he needs only his eyes for that.

CHAPTER 4

On the manner of forming judgments

The different ways of forming judgments follow from this. In
monarchies judges assume the manner of arbiters; they deliberate
together, they share their thoughts, they come to an agreement; one
modifies his opinion to make it like another’s; opinions with the least
support are incorporated into the two most widely held. This is not in
the nature of a republic. In Rome and in the Greek towns, judges did
not communicate with each other; each gave his opinion in one of three
ways, I absolve, I condemn , It is not evident to me* because the people
judged or were thought to judge. But the people are not jurists; the

3 Non liquet: “It is not evident.”

76

Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

modifications and temperings of arbiters are not for them; they must be
presented with a single object, a deed, and only one deed, and they have
only to see whether they should condemn, absolve, or remand
judgment.

The Romans, following the example of the Greeks, introduced
formulae for actions at law , 4 and established that it was necessary for
each suit to be managed by the action proper to it. This was necessary
to their manner of judging; the state of the question had to be fixed in
order to keep it before the people. Otherwise, in the course of an
important suit, the state of the question would continually change and
become unrecognizable.

Thus it followed that judges, among the Romans, would admit only
the specific request without increasing, diminishing, or modifying
anything. But the praetors imagined other formulae for the guidance of
actions, which were called in good faith , 5 where the manner of pro-
nouncing judgment was more at the disposition of the judge. This
arrangement was more in agreement with the spirit of monarchy. Thus,
French legal experts say: In France, all actions are in good faith . 6

4 “Such legal actions were instituted just as the people wished, for they wanted them to be
both solemn and certain” [L.]. Law 2, para. 6, Digest \Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 1 .2.2.6];
de origirte juris.

5 In which these words were included: ex bona fide : “in good faith.”

6 There even the one of whom more is demanded than he owes is condemned to pay the
expenses unless he has offered and consigned what he owes.

CHAPTER 5

In which governments the sovereign can be the judge

Machiavelli 7 attributes the loss of liberty in Florence to the fact that the
people as a body did not judge the crimes of high treason committed
against them, as was done in Rome. Eight judges were established for
this: But, states Machiavelli, few are corrupted by few. I would gladly
adopt this great man’s maxim; but, as in these cases of treason, political
interest forces civil interest, so to speak (for it is always a drawback if the
people themselves judge their offenses), the laws must provide, as

7 [Niccolo Machiavelli] Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, bk. 1, chap. 7 [bk. 1, chap. 7].

77

Part i

much as they can, for the security of individuals in order to remedy this
drawback.

Using this idea, the Roman legislators did two things: they permitted
accused men to exile themselves 8 before the judgment 9 and they
wanted the goods of condemned men to be made sacred so that the
people could not confiscate them. Other limitations placed on the
people’s power to judge will be seen in Book 1 1.

Solon knew very well how to curb the people’s abuses of their power
when judging crimes; he wanted the Areopagus to review the suit, and
if it believed the accused to be unjustly acquitted , 10 it accused him again
before the people; and if it believed him unjustly condemned , 11 it
checked the execution and had the suit judged again: an admirable law,
which subjected the people to the censure of the magistracy they most
respected and to their own censure as well!

It will be well to slow down such suits, especially after the accused is
made a prisoner, so that the people will be calmed and will judge with
cool heads.

In despotic states the prince himself can judge. He cannot judge in
monarchies: the constitution would be destroyed and the intermediate
dependent powers reduced to nothing; one would see all the formali-
ties of judgments cease; fear would invade all spirits; one would see
pallor on/£very face; there would be no more trust, honor, love,
security, or monarchy.

Here are some other reflections. In monarchical states, the prince is
the party who pursues those who are accused and has them punished or
acquitted; if he himself judged, he would be both judge and party.

In these same states, the prince often receives what is confiscated; if
he judged the crimes, he would again be both judge and party.

Moreover, he would lose the finest attribute of his sovereignty,
which is that of pardoning . 12 It would be senseless for him both to make
and unmake his own judgments; he would not want to contradict
himself.

8 This is well explained in the oration of Cicero, Pro Caedna [too], at the end.

9 It was an Athenian law, as appears from Demosthenes. Socrates refused to use it.
10 Demosthenes [ Orationes ], De Corona , p. 494, Frankfurt edition of 1604 [18.133].

11 See Flavius Philostratus, Vitae sophistarum, Aeschines, bk. 1 [508 [Olearius]].

12 Plato does not think that the kings, who are, as he says, priests, can be present at judgments
in which condemnations to death, exile, or imprisonment are made [Plato, Epistolae 8,
356e— 3 57a].

78

Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

Beyond the confusion into which this would throw all ideas, one
would not know if a man had been acquitted or pardoned.

Louis XIII wanted to be the judge in the case against the Duke de la
Valette 13 and for this purpose called into his chambers some officers of
the parlement and state councillors; as the king forced them to give an
opinion on the warrant for arrest, the president of Believre said “that he
saw something strange in this business where a prince would give an
opinion in the case of one of his subjects; that kings had kept only
pardons for themselves and that they had left condemnations to their
officers. And Your Majesty would be glad to see before him at the bar a
man, who by your judgment would go to his death in an hour! That the
countenance of the prince, who pardons, cannot endure this, that his
visage alone suspended the interdicts of churches, and that one should
never be anything but satisfied on leaving the presence of the prince.”
When the merits of the case were judged, the same president said in his
opinion, “It is an unexampled judgment, not to say contrary to all
examples from the past to the present, that a King of France as judge
has, by his opinion, condemned a gentleman to death .” 14

Judgments rendered by the prince would be an inexhaustible source
of injustices and abuses; the courtiers would extort his judgments by
their badgering. Some of the Roman emperors had a craze for judging;
no reigns stunned the universe more by their injustices than these.

Tacitus says , 15 “As Claudius had taken for himself the judgment of
suits and the functions of the magistrates, he occasioned all sorts of
rapine.” Thus when Nero, on becoming emperor after Claudius,
wanted to win over men’s spirits, he declared “that he would take care
not to be the judge of all suits so that the accusers and the accused,
within the walls of a palace, should not be exposed to the iniquitous
power of a few freed men .” 16

“In the reign of Arcadius,” says Zosimus , 17 “the nation of slanderers
increased, surrounded the court, and infected it. It was assumed, when
a man died, that he had left no children ; 18 his goods were given by a

13 See the account of the case against the Duke de la Valette. It is printed in [Claude de
Bourdeille, Comte de] Montresor, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 62 [2, 296-341; 1723 edn],

M This was later changed. See the same account [Claude de Bourdeille, Comte de
Montresor, Memoirs, 2, 307-308, 326; 1723 edn].

; [ 1 acitus] Annales, bk. 11 [11.5]. 16 Ibid. [Tacitus, Annales], bk. 13 [13.4].

7 [Zosimus] Historiae , bk. 5 [5.24.17-19; 279-280 Bekker].

There was the same disorder under Theodosius the Younger.

79

Part i

rescript of the emperor. For, as the prince was strangely dull-witted
and the empress venturesome to excess, she served the insatiable
avarice of her domestics and confidantes; so that for moderate people
nothing was more desirable than death.”

“Formerly,” says Procopius , 19 “there were few people at court, but
under Justinian, since the judges were no longer free to render justice,
the tribunals were deserted, while the prince’s palace resounded with
the clamor of the parties soliciting suits.” Everyone knows how
judgments, and even laws, were sold there.

The laws are the prince’s eyes; he sees with them what he could not
see without them. Does he want to perform the function of the
tribunals? Then he works not for himself, but for those who would
deceive him.

19 [Procopius] Anecdota sive Historia arcana [30.30-31].

CHAPTER 6

That , in a monarchy , the ministers should not judge

It is also a great drawback in a monarchy for the ministers of the prince
themselves to^udge contested suits. Today we still see states in which
there are innumerable judges to decide suits concerning the fisc and
the ministers (who would believe it!) still want to judge them/ Reflec-
tions on this subject crowd upon me; I shall offer just one.

There is, by the nature of things, a kind of contradiction between the
monarch’s council and his tribunals. The king’s council should be
composed of few persons, and the tribunals of the judiciary require
many. The reason is that in the king’s council one must undertake
public business with a certain passion and pursue it likewise; this can be
expected only from four or five men who make it their business.
Tribunals of the judiciary must, on the contrary, be coolheaded and, in
a way, neutral in all matters of business.

'Translators’ parentheses.

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

chapter 7

On the single magistrate

Such a magistrate can have a place only in despotic government. In
Roman history one sees to what point a single judge can abuse his
power. How could Appius in his tribunal not have despised the laws,
since he violated even the law he had made ? 20 Livy tells us of this
decemvir’s iniquitous distinction. He had induced a man to claim
before him that Virginia was his slave; Virginia’s relatives asked that, by
virtue of his law, she be returned to them until final judgment. He
declared that his law had been made only to benefit the father and that,
as Virginius was absent, it was not applicable . 21

20 See Law 2, para. 24 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 1.2.24]; de origine juris et omnium
magistratuum et successions prudentum.

21 “Since the father of the girl was absent, he thought it an opportune moment to commit an
injustice” [L.]. Livy, decade 1, bk. 3 [3.44.5].

CHAPTER 8

On accusations in the various governments

In Rome 22 citizens were permitted to accuse one another. This was
established in the spirit of the republic, where each citizen should have
boundless zeal for the public good, where it is assumed that each
citizen has all the rights of the homeland in his hands. The maxims of
the republic were followed under the emperors, and one saw a dreadful
kind of man, a band of informers, immediately appear. Whoever had
many vices and many talents, a common soul and an ambitious spirit,
would seek out a criminal whose condemnation might please the
prince; this was the way to advance to honors and to fortune , 23 a thing
that we never see among ourselves.

At present we have an admirable law; it wants the prince, who is
established in order to see to the execution of the laws, to appoint an
officer in each tribunal who will pursue all crimes in his name; thus the
office of informer is unknown among us. And if this public avenger

22 And in many other cities.

23 See in Tacitus [Annates 4.30] the rewards granted to these informers.

8l

Part i

were suspected of abusing his ministry, he would be obliged to name
the one who had made the denunciation.

In Plato’s Laws , 24 those who neglect to alert or aid magistrates are to
be punished. This would not be suitable today. The party for the public
keeps watch for the citizens; it acts, and they are tranquil/

24 [Plato, Lams] bk. 9 [856b— c].

d partie publique . For Montesquieu’s understanding of the historical development of the
public prosecutor see 28.36 (note q , bk. 28).

CHAPTER 9

On the severity of penalties in the various governments

Severity in penalties suits despotic government, whose principle is
terror, better than monarchies and republics, which have honor and
virtue for their spring.

In moderate states, love of the homeland, shame, and fear of blame
are motives that serve as restraints and so can check many crimes. The
greatest penalty for a bad action will be to convicted of it. Therefore
in moderate states civil laws will make corrections more easily and will
not need as much force.

In these states a good legislator will insist less on punishing crimes
than on preventing them; he will apply himself more to giving mores
than to inflicting punishments.

Chinese writers have perpetually observed 25 that, in their empire,
the more severe the punishments, the nearer the revolution. This is the
case because punishments increased in severity to the extent that mores
were lost.

It would be easy to prove that in all or nearly all the states of Europe
penalties have decreased or increased in proportion as one has
approached or departed from liberty.

In despotic countries one is so unhappy that one fears death more
than one cherishes life; therefore, punishments should be more severe
there. In moderate states one fears the loss of life more than one dreads
death as such; punishments that simply suppress life are sufficient
there.

25 1 shall show later that China, in this respect, is a case of a republic or a monarchy.

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

Extremely happy men and extremely unhappy men are equally-
disposed to harshness: witness monks and conquerors. Only the
middling sort, and the mixture of good fortune with bad, offer
gentleness and pity.

One can find in the various nations what one sees in men taken
individually. There is equal cruelty among savage peoples, who lead a
hard life, and among the peoples of despotic governments where
fortune favors only one man exorbitantly and abuses all the rest.
Gentleness reigns in moderate governments.

When we read in histories the examples of the atrocious justice of the
sultans, we feel with a kind of sorrow the ills of human nature.

In moderate governments a good legislator can form anything into
penalties. Is it not quite extraordinary that in Sparta one of the principal
penalties forbade a man to lend his wife to another or to receive that
man’s wife or ever to be in his own house except with virgins? In a word,
whatever the law calls a penalty is in effect a penalty.

CHAPTER 10

On the old French laws

In the old French laws one surely finds the spirit of monarchy. In cases
involving pecuniary penalties, non-nobles are punished less than
nobles . 26 It is quite the contrary for crimes ; 27 the noble loses his honor
and his voice at court while the villein, who has no honor, is punished
corporally.

26 “When complying with a decree of the court, the non-noblemen owe a fine of forty sous
and the noblemen sixty pounds.” [Jean Boutillier], Le Grand CoustumierLa Somme rural ,
bk. 2,p. 198; Got. ednof 1512 [197 vj; [bk. 2, tit. 4o,“D’un nobles hommes meffaire”; pp.
864-865; 1621 edn]; and Beaumanoir [Coutumes de Beauvaisis], chap. 61, p. 309 [#1720].
27 See the Consetl of Pierre de Fontaines, chap. 13, chiefly art. 22 [chap. 13, art. 22; pp. 79-
80; 1846 edn].

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Part i

CHAPTER II

That when a people is virtuous few penalties are needed

The Romans were a people of integrity. Their integrity was so strong
that often the legislator needed only to show them the good to have
them follow it. It seemed that it was enough to give them counsels
instead of ordinances.

Almost all the penalties in the royal laws and in the laws of the
Twelve Tables were removed during the republic, either in accordance
with the Valerian law , 28 or as a consequence of the Porcian law . 29 One
observes that the republic was no more poorly ruled and that no injury
to its police resulted.

The Valerian law, which forbade the magistrates to attack in any way
a citizen who had appealed to the people, inflicted on one who
transgressed the law only the penalty of a reputation for wickedness . 30

28 It was made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expulsion of the kings; it was renewed
twice, both times by magistrates of the same family, as Livy says, bk. to [10.9.3]. h was not
a question of giving it more force, but of perfecting its provisions. “More thoroughly
inviolate” [L.], Livy says, ibid. [10.9.3].

29 “The Porcian Law was made to protect the citizens” [L.] [Livy 10.9.4]. It was made in
Roman year 454 [300 B.c.].

30 “It added nothing ot^ef than that it be deemed a wicked act” [L.], Livy [10.9.5].

CHAPTER 12

On the power of penalties

Experience has shown that, in countries where penalties are gentle, the
citizen’s spirit is struck by them as it is elsewhere by heavy ones.

Is some defect felt in a state? A violent government wants to correct it
instantly; and, instead of considering that the old laws should be
executed, one establishes a cruel penalty that checks the ill then and
there. But the spring of the government wears down; the imagination
becomes inured to this heavier penalty as it had to the lesser, and as fear
of the lesser penalty diminishes, one is soon forced to establish the
heavier in every case. Highway robberies were common in some states;
one wanted to check them; the punishment of the wheel was invented,

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

which halted them for a while. Since that time there have been
robberies on the highways as before.

In our time desertion has been very frequent; the death penalty has
been established against deserters, yet desertion has not diminished.
There is a very natural reason for this: a soldier, accustomed to risking
his life every day, despises danger or flatters himself that he despises it.
He is accustomed to fearing shame every day; the penalty of marking
him for life should have been kept . 31 It was claimed that the penalty had
been increased and in reality it had been diminished.

Men must not be led to extremes; one should manage the means that
nature gives us to guide them. If one examines the cause of every
instance of laxity, one will see that it is unpunished crimes and not
moderated penalties.

Let us follow nature, which has given men shame for their scourge,
and let the greatest part of the penalty be the infamy of suffering it.

If there are countries in which shame is not an effect of punishment,
it is a result of tyranny, which has inflicted the same penalties on
scoundrels as on good people.

And, if you see other countries in which men are restrained only by
cruel punishments, reckon again that this arises largely from the
violence of the government, which has employed these punishments
for slight transgressions.

A legislator who wants to correct an ill often thinks only of that
correction; his eye is on that object and not on its defects. Once the ill
has been corrected, only the harshness of the legislator is seen; but a
vice produced by the harshness remains in the state; spirits are
corrupted; they have become accustomed to despotism.

After Lysander 32 had won a victory over the Athenians, the prisoners
were judged; the Athenians were accused of having hurled the captives
from two galleys over a precipice and of having resolved, in full
assembly, to cut off the hands of any prisoners they might take. The
Athenians were all slaughtered except Adeimantus, who had opposed
the Athenian decree. Before sending Philocles to his death, Lysander
reproached him for depraving the spirit of the Athenians and for giving
lessons in cruelty to all Greece.

“After the Argives had had fifteen hundred citizens put to death,”

31 The nose was broken, and the ears cut off.

32 Xenophon, Hellenica, bk. 2 [2.1. 31-32].

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Part i

says Plutarch , 33 “the Athenians ordered expiatory sacrifices so that the
gods would turn the hearts of the Athenians from such a cruel
thought.”

There are two kinds of corruption: one, when the people do not
observe the laws, the other, when they are corrupted by the laws; the
latter is an incurable ill because it lies in the remedy itself.

33 [Plutarch] Moralia, Praecepta gerendae republicae [814b].

CHAPTER 13

Powerlessness of Japanese laws

Extravagant penalties can corrupt despotism itself. Let us look at Japan.

In Japan almost all crimes are punished by death 34 because dis-
obedience to such a great emperor as Japan’s is an enormous crime. It
is not a question of correcting the guilty man but of avenging the prince.
These ideas are drawn from servitude and derive chiefly from the fact
that the emperor is the owner of all the goods and so almost all crimes
are committed directly against his interests.

Lies told tp the magistrates are punished by death ; 35 a thing that is
contrary to natural defense.

There, things that do not appear to be crimes are severely punished:
for example, a man who risks silver at gaming is punished by death.

It is true that the astonishing character of these opinionated,
capricious, determined, eccentric people, who brave every peril and
every misfortune, seems at first sight to absolve their legislators for
their atrocious laws. But, are people who naturally despise death and
who disembowel themselves at the slightest fancy corrected or checked
by the continual prospect of punishments? Or, do they not become
accustomed to them?

On the subject of the education of the Japanese, accounts tell us that
children must be treated gently because they resist penalties and that
slaves should not be treated too roughly because they immediately take

34 See [Engelbert] Kaempfer [The History of Japan together with a Description of the Kingdom of
Siam, i 6 qo-i 6 q 2 , appendix 6; 3, 325-326; 1906 edn].

33 Recuetl des voyages qui ont servi a I'etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, vol. 3, part 2,
p. 428 [“Voiage de Hagenaaraux Indes Orientales”; 5, 343; 1706 edn; 5, 428; 1725 edn].

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

a defensive posture. From the spirit that should reign in domestic
government, could one not judge what should be carried into political
and civil government?

A wise legislator would have sought to lead men’s spirits back by a
just tempering of penalties and rewards; by maxims of philosophy,
morality, and religion, matched to this character; by the just application
of the rules of honor; by using shame as a punishment, and by the
enjoyment of a constant happiness and a sweet tranquillity. And, if this
legislator had feared that men’s spirits, accustomed to being checked
only by cruel penalties, could no longer be checked by a gentle one, he
would have acted 36 silently and imperceptibly and would have
moderated the penalty for the crime in the most pardonable particular
cases until he could manage to modify it in every case.

But despotism does not know these springs; it does not lead in these
ways. It may abuse itself, but that is all it can do. In japan it has made an
effort and has become more cruel than itself.

Souls that are everywhere startled and made more atrocious can be
guided only by a greater atrocity.

This is the origin and spirit of the Japanese laws. But these laws had
more fury than force. They have succeeded in destroying Christianity,
but such unheard-of efforts are a proof of their powerlessness. The
laws wanted to establish a good police, and their weakness has
appeared even more clearly.

One must read the account of the meeting between the emperor and
the deyro of Meaco. 37 ' The number of people smothered or killed by
rogues then was unbelievable: girls and boys were carried off; they were
discovered in the following days exposed in public places, at all hours,
entirely naked, sewed up in canvas bags so that they would not know
where they had been; men stole what they wanted; horses’ stomachs
were split open to make their riders fall; coaches were overturned in
order to plunder the ladies inside. The Dutch, who were told that they
could not spend the night outdoors on the benches without being
murdered, departed, and so forth.

I shall briefly mention another point. The emperor, given to

36 0bserve this as a practical maxim in cases where spirits have been spoiled by overly
rigorous penalties.

37 Recueil des voyages qut ont servi d I’etablissement de la Compagnie des hides, vol. 5, part 2
[“VisiteduDairoal’EmpereurduJapon”;5, 438-440; 1706 edn; 5, 508-51 1; 1725 edn].

'Meaco is today’s Kyoto.

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Part i

infamous pleasures, had not married; he ran the risk of dying without
an heir. The deyro sent him two beautiful girls; he married one of them
out of respect but had no commerce with her. His nurse sent for the
most beautiful woman in the empire. Nothing availed. The daughter of
an armourer caught his fancy ; 38 his decision was made; he had a son by
her. The ladies of the court, outraged that he had preferred a person of
such low birth to them, smothered the child. This crime was hidden
from the emperor; he would have caused much bloodshed. Therefore,
atrocity in the laws prevents their execution. When the penalty is
excessive, one is often obliged to prefer impunity.

38 Ibid. [Recueil des voyages qui ont servi d I’etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, vol. 5,
“Voiage de Hagenaar aux Indes Orientales”; 5, 313; 1706 edn; 5, 392-393; 1725 edn.]

CHAPTER 14

On the spirit of the Roman senate

During the consulate of Acilius Glabrio and Piso, the Acilian law 39 was
made in order to check intrigues. Dio 40 says that the senate engaged the
consuls to propose it, because the tribune C. Cornelius had resolved to
establish terrible penalties for this crime, which the people were
strongly inclined to commit. The senate thought that immoderate
penalties would certainly terrify men’s spirits but that, as a result, no
one could be found to accuse or condemn; whereas, with moderate
penalties, there would be both judges and accusers.

39 The guilty ones were condemned to a fine; they could no longer be admitted to the order of
the senators or named to any magistracy. Cass. Dio, bk. 36 [. Historia Romana 36.38.1].

40 Ibid. [Cass. Dio, Historia Romana 36.38.4-5.]

CHAPTER 15

On the laws of the Romans in respect to penalties

I am strengthened in my maxims when I find the Romans on my side;
and I believe that penalties depend on the nature of the government,
when I see that, in step with the changes in their political laws, this great

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

people made corresponding changes in the penalties of the civil
laws.

The royal laws, made for a people composed of fugitives, slaves, and
brigands, were very severe. The spirit of the republic would have
required the decemvirs not to put these laws in the Twelve Tables, but
those who aspired to tyranny cared nothing about following the spirit of
the republic.

Concerning the punishment of Mettius Fufetius, the dictator of
Alba, whom Tullus Hostilius condemned to be pulled apart by two
chariots, Livy says 41 that this was the first and final punishment that
bore witness to one’s failure to remember humanity. He is mistaken:
the law of the Twelve Tables is full of very cruel provisions . 42

The provision that best reveals the design of the decemvirs is the
pronouncement of the death penalty against authors of libels and
against poets. That is scarcely in accord with the genius of the republic,
where the people like to see important men humbled. But those who
wanted to overthrow liberty feared writings that could call back the
spirit of liberty . 43

After the expulsion of the decemvirs, almost all of the laws with fixed
penalties were removed. They were not expressly abrogated; but, as the
Porcian law prohibited putting Roman citizens to death, they were no
longer applicable.

To that time one can ascribe what Livy 44 says of the Romans, that
never had a people more loved moderation in penalties.

If one adds, to the gentleness of penal laws, the right of the accused
to depart before the judgment, one will see that the Romans followed
that spirit which I have said is natural to a republic.

Sulla, who confused tyranny, anarchy, and liberty, made the Cor-
nelian laws. His regulations seem to have been made only in order to
establish crimes. Thus, defining an infinite number of actions as
murder, he found murderers everywhere; and by a practice that was
followed only too often, he laid snares, scattered thorns, and opened
abysses in the path of all citizens.

Almost all of Sulla’s laws stipulated only the interdiction of water and

41 [Livy] bk. i [1.28.10].

42 In it one finds the punishment by fire, penalties that are almost always capital, the theft
punished by death, etc.

43 Sulla, moved by the same spirit as the decemvirs, increased, as they did, the penalties
against satirical writers.

44 [Livy] bk. 1 [1.28.11].

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Part i

fire/ Caesar added the confiscation of goods 45 because the rich, who
kept their patrimony even in exile, were bolder in committing crimes.

After the emperors had established a military government, they soon
felt that it was no less terrible for them than for their subjects; they
sought to temper it; they believed they needed dignities and the respect
accompanying them.

They drew somewhat nearer to monarchy and divided penalties into
three classes : 46 those regarding the principal persons of the state , 47
which were gentle enough; those inflicted on persons of an inferior
rank , 48 which were more severe; and finally, those penalties concerning
only those of low condition , 49 which were the most strict.

The ferocious and senseless Maximinus excited, so to speak, the
military government, which should have been gentle. The senate
learned, says Capitolinus , 50 that some men had been hung on crosses,
others thrown to beasts or wrapped in the skins of freshly killed beasts
without regard to dignities. He seemed to want to exert military
discipline, the model on which he intended to regulate civil business.

One can find in the Considerations on the Grandeur of the Romans and
Their Decadence how Constantine changed the military despotism into a
military and civil despotism and drew nearer to monarchy/ In that book
one can follow the various revolutions of this state and see how it went
from strictness to indolence, and from indolence to impunity.

45 “He increased the penalties for crimes, since those with wealth were more apt to commit
them, because, if they were found guilty, they would be exiled but their property would
remain untouched” [L.]. Suetonius, Vitae duodecim Caesarum, Julius Caesar [42].

46 See Law 3 [Corpus Juris Civilis , Digest 48.8.3.5]; ad legem Comeliam de sicariis et veneficiis ;
and a great number of others in the Digest and the Code [Code 9.16 ad legem Comeliam de
sicariis}.

47 Sublimiores: “more distinguished.”

^Medios: “middling.”

49 Infimos: “lowest, meanest.” Law 3 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 48.8.3.5]; ad legem Comeliam
de sicariis et veneficiis.

50 Julius Capitolinus, Maxtmint duo [8].

'The “interdiction of fire and water” was a decree prohibiting the return of an exiled
person.

*See chapter 17 of M.’s Considerations (1965 edn, pp. 157-158).

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

CHAPTER l6

On the just proportion between the penalties and the crime

It is essential for penalties to be harmonious among themselves,
because it is essential that the greater crime be avoided rather than the
lesser one, the one that attacks society rather than the one that runs less
counter to it.

“An impostor , 51 who called himself Constantine Ducas, sparked a
great uprising in Constantinople. He was caught and condemned to be
flogged, but, as he had accused eminent persons, he was condemned to
be burned as a slanderer.” It is singular that one should have
apportioned penalties in this way between the crime of high treason and
that of calumny.

This recalls a remark of Charles II, King of England. He passed a
man in the pillory; he asked why he was there. Sire, he was told, he has
written libels against your ministers. The great fool, said the king, why didn V
he write them against me? Nothing would have happened to him.

“Seventy persons conspired against the emperor Basil ; 52 he had
them thrashed; their hair and beards were burned. When a stag caught
the emperor’s belt with his antlers, one of his attendants drew his
sword, cut the belt, and freed him; the emperor had him beheaded,
because, the emperor said, ‘he had drawn his sword against him.’ ”
Who could believe that these two judgments were rendered under the
same prince?

Among ourselves, it is a great ill that the same penalty is inflicted on
the highway robber and on the one who robs and murders. For the
public safety, it is evident that there must be some difference in the
penalties.

In China robbers who are cruel are cut to bits , 53 the others are not;
because of this difference, one robs there but does not murder.

History of Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople. [Not Nicephorus but Leo the
Grammarian, Chronographia, “Constantinus,” CSHB 47.321-322; M. is quoting from
Louis Cousins, Histoire de Constantinople 3 . 484; 1685 edn.]

52 History of Nicephorus. [Not Nicephorus but Leo the Grammarian, Chronographia,
“Basil,” CSHB 47. 261-262; M. is quoting here from Louis Cousins, Histoire de
Constantinople, 3. 438; 1685 edn.]

53 Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de {’Empire de la Chine], vol. 1, p. 6 [“Idee
generate de l’Empire de la Chine”; 1, 5 P; 1, 6 H; 1, 6 L],

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Part i

In Muscovy, where the penalty for robbery is the same as for murder,
one always murders . 54 Dead men, they say, tell no tales.

When there is no difference in the penalty, there must be some
difference in the expectation of pardon. In England robbers do not
murder because, unlike murderers, they can expect to be transported
to the colonies.

Letters of pardon are a great spring of moderate governments. The
power of the prince to pardon, executed wisely, can have admirable
results. The principle of despotic government, a government which
does not pardon and which is never pardoned, deprives it of these
advantages/

54 [John] Ferry, The State of Russia Under the Present Czar[ p. 229; 1967 edn).

*In this sentence the prince and the principle of despotic government are
indistinguishable.

CHAPTER 17

On torture or the question for criminals

Because men are wicked, the law is obliged to assume them to be better
than they are. Thus the deposition of two witnesses is enough in the
punishment of all crimes. The law believes them as if they spoke with
the mouth of truth. Also, every child conceived during marriage is
judged legitimate; the law trusts the mother as if she were modesty
itself. Though the law is forced to make the preceding assumptions, it is
not forced to use the question in criminal cases. Today we see a well-
policed nation 55 reject it without meeting drawbacks. The use of the
question is, therefore, not necessary by its nature . 56

So many clever people and so many men of genius have written

55 The English nation.

56 The citizens of Athens could not be put to the question (Lysias, Orationes, Against Agoratus
[13.25—28]), except in the crime of high treason. The question was used thirty days after the
condemnation: C. Chirius Fortunatianvs,Artis rhetoricae , bk. 2 [1.15; 2.26, 30]. There was
no preparatory question. As for the Romans, Laws 3 and 4 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest
48.4.3-4 ad legem Juliam maiestatis] show that birth, dignity, and the profession of the
militia guaranteed protection from the question, if it were not a case of the crime of high
treason. See the wise restrictions made by the Lex Wisigothorum [2.3.4] on this practice.

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

against this practice that I dare not speak after them. I was going to say
that it might be suitable for despotic government, where everything
inspiring fear enters more into the springs of the government; I was
going to say that slaves among the Greeks and Romans . . . But I hear
the voice of nature crying out against me.

CHAPTER l8

On pecuniary penalties and corporal penalties

Our fathers the Germans admitted almost none but pecuniary
penalties. These men, who were both warriors and free, considered
that their blood should be spilled only when they were armed. The
Japanese , 57 by contrast, reject these sorts of penalties on the pretext
that rich people would escape punishment. But do not rich people fear
the loss of their goods? Cannot pecuniary penalties be proportionate to
fortunes? And, finally, cannot infamy be joined with these penalties?

A good legislator takes a middle way;' he does not always order
pecuniary penalties; he does not always inflict corporal penalties.

57 See [Engelbert] Kaempfer [ The History of Japan together with a Description of the Kingdom of
Siam, 1690-1692, appendix 6, 3, 325-326; 1906 ednj.

'juste milieu.

CHAPTER 19

On the law of retaliation

Despotic states, which prefer simple laws, make much use of the law of
retaliation ; 58 moderate states sometimes accept it. But the difference is
that the former have it exercised strictly, while the others almost always
temper it.

The law of the Twelve Tables admitted both; it sentenced in terms
of retaliation only when the pleader could not be appeased . 59 After

58 It is established in the Koran. See the chapter “On the Cow” [2.178].

59 “If a limb has been broken, unless an agreement be made, there will be retaliation” [L.[.
Aulus Gellius [AW], bk. 20, chap. 1 [20.1. 14].

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Part i

sentencing, one could pay damage and interest , 60 and the corporal
penalty would be converted into a pecuniary penalty . 61

^Ibid. { NA 20.1. 14].

61 See also the Lex Wisigothorum, bk. 6, tit. 4, paras. 3 and 5 [6.4.3, 5l-

CHAPTER 20

On fathers being punished for their children

Fathers are punished in China for the offenses of their children. This
was the usage in Peru . 62 It is another punishment derived from despotic
ideas.

It is all very well to say that in China the father is punished for not
having used that paternal power established by nature and augmented
by the laws themselves; this always assumes that there is no honor
among the Chinese. Among ourselves, fathers whose children are
condemned to punishment and children 63 whose fathers have met the
same fate are punished as much by shame as they would be in China by
the loss of life.

62 See Garcilaso [de la Vega, El Inca], Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of
Peru [pY. -i, bk. 2, chap. 12; r, 95; 1966 edn|.

63 Instead of being punished, said Plato, they must be praised for not resembling their father.
[Plato] Lam , bk. 9 [855a].

CHAPTER 21

On the clemency of the prince

Clemency is the distinctive quality of monarchs. In a republic, which has
virtue as its principle, it is less necessary. In a despotic state, where fear
reigns, it is used less, because the important men of the state must be
restrained by examples of severity. In monarchies, where one is
governed by honor, which often requires what the law prohibits, it is
more necessary . Disgrace there is equivalent to a penalty; even the
formalities of judgments are punishments. There, shame comes from
all sides and forms penalties particular to monarchies.

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Civil and criminal laws, judgments, and penalties

The important men there are so heavily punished by disgrace, by the
often -imaginary loss of their fortune, their credit, their habits, and their
pleasures, that strictness in respect to them is useless; it can serve only
to take from the subjects the love they bear the person of their prince
and the respect they should have for positions.

Just as the instability of important men is in the nature of despotic
government, their security enters into the nature of monarchy.

Monarchs have so much to gain from clemency, it is followed by such
love, and they draw such glory from it, that it is almost always a
fortunate thing for them to have occasion to exercise it; and one can
almost always do so in our countries.

There will perhaps be disputes over some branch of their authority
but almost never over their whole authority; and, if they sometimes
fight for the crown, they never fight for their lives.

But, one will ask, when is one to punish? When to pardon? This is
something better felt than prescribed. Though clemency has dangers,
they are visible. Clemency is easily distinguished from the weakness
that leads the prince to scorn punishing and even to lack the power to
do so.

The emperor Maurice 64 resolved never to shed the blood of his
subjects. Anastasius 65 did not punish crimes. Isaac the AngeP swore
that, during his reign, he would put no one to death. The Greek
emperors had forgotten that they did not carry the sword in vain.

64 Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica [6,io;p. 228; 1979 edn).

55 Suidas, in Constantine Porphyrogenitus [Extracts of Virtues and Vices]. [M.’s interpretation
follows a Latin translation, not the Greek original. Suidas, Lexicon, “Anastasios,” i. 187;
Teubner edn, 1938.]

"'Isaac II Angelus.

95

BOOK 7

Consequences of the different principles
of the three governments in relation to
sumptuary laws, luxury, and the
condition of women

CHAPTER I

On luxury

Luxury is always proportionate to the inequality of fortunes. If wealth is
equally divided in a state, there will be no luxury, for luxury is founded
only on the comforts that one can give oneself from the work of others.

For wealth to remain equally divided, the law must give each man
only the physical necessities. If men have more than that, some will
spend, others, will acquire, and inequality will be established.

Assuming physical necessities equal to a given sum, the luxury of
those who have only the necessary will be equal to zero : he who has its
double will have a luxury equal to one; he who has double the goods of
the latter will have a luxury equal to three; when the next has yet again
the double, he will have a luxury equal to seven; so that, always
assuming the goods of the next individual to be twice those of the
previous one, luxury will increase by twice plus one, in this progression:
o, i, 3> 7> 6 3> I2 7-

In the republic of Plato, 1 " it was possible to calculate luxury
accurately. Four levels of census were established. The first was set
precisely at the point where poverty ended; the second at double the
first, the third triple, and the fourth, quadruple. In the first census,
luxury was equal to zero’, it was equal to one in the second, to two in the

1 The first census was the hereditary based on amounts of land, and Plato wanted no one to
have more than triple the hereditary lot in other effects. See his Laws , bk. 5 [744d-eJ.

“In the Pensees, 1378 (1452), Montesquieu speaks of “Plato’s two Republics."

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Sumptuary laws , luxury , and the condition of women

third, to three in the fourth; and it followed arithmetic proportion
accordingly.

The luxury of the various peoples in regard to each other exists in
each state as a compound ratio of the inequality of fortunes among the
citizens and the inequality of wealth of the various states. In Poland, for
example, there is an extreme inequality in fortunes, but the poverty of
the whole prevents it from having as much luxury as would a richer
state.

Luxury is also proportionate to the size of the towns and above all of
the capital, so that luxury exists in a compound ratio of the wealth of the
state, the inequality of the fortunes of individuals, and the number of
men gathered together in certain places.

The more men there are together, the more vain they are, and the
more they feel arise within them the desire to call attention to
themselves by small things . 2 If their number is so great that most are
unknown to one another, the desire to distinguish oneself redoubles
because there is more expectation of succeeding. Luxury produces this
expectation; each man takes the marks of the condition above his own.
But, by dint of wanting to distinguish themselves, all became equal, and
one is no longer distinct; as everyone wants to be looked at, no one is
noticed.

The result of all this is a general distress. Those who excel in a
profession put their own price on their art; the least talented follow this
example; there is no longer harmony between needs and means. When
I am forced to plead, I need to be able to pay a lawyer; when I am sick, I
must be able to have a doctor.

Some people have thought that gathering of so many people in a
capital has diminished commerce because men are no longer a certain
distance apart. I do not believe it; men have more desires, more needs,
and more fancies when they are together.

2 In a great town, says [Bernard MandevilleJ the author of The Fable of the Bees, vol. i, p. 133
l 1 73 2 e dn> Remark m; i, 129-130; 1924 edn], one dresses above one’s quality to be
esteemed by the multitude as being more than one is. For a weak spirit this pleasure is
nearly as great as that from the fulfillment of his desires.

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Part i

CHAPTER 2

On sumptuary lam in democracy

I have just said that in republics where wealth is equally divided, there
can be no luxury; and, as one has seen in Book 5 3 that this equality of
distribution made the excellence of a republic, it follows that the less
luxury there is in a republic, the more perfect it is. There was none
among the first Romans; there was none among the Lacedaemonians;
and in republics where equality is not altogether lost, the spirit of
commerce, of work, and of virtue makes each one there able and willing
to live from his own goods; consequently, there is little luxury.

Laws dividing the fields anew, demanded with such insistence in
certain republics, were salutary by their nature. They are dangerous
only as a sudden action. By abruptly removing wealth from some and
increasing the wealth of others, they make a revolution in each family
and must produce one generally throughout the state.

So far as luxury is established in a republic, so far does the spirit turn
to the interest of the individual. For people who have to have nothing
but the necessities, there is left to desire only the glory of the homeland
and one’s own glory. But a soul corrupted by luxury has many other
desires; soop.it becomes an enemy of the laws that hamper it. When
those in the garrison at Rhegium became familiar with luxury, they
slaughtered the town’s inhabitants.

As soon as the Romans were corrupted, their desires became
immense. This can be judged by the price they put on things. A jug of
Falemian wine 4 sold for one hundred Roman deniers; a barrel of salt
meat from the Black Sea cost four hundred deniers; a good cook, four
talents; young boys were priceless. When everyone, by a common
impulse , 5 was carried to voluptuousness, what became of virtue?

3 Chaps. 3 and 4.

4 Fragment of Diodorus Siculus [Bibliotheca historical, bk. 365 [37.3.5], reported by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Extracts of Virtues and Vices.

5 “As everyone strove for the greatest luxury” [L.]. Ibid. [Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca
historica, 37.3.2.]

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Sumptuary lam , luxury, and the condition of women

CHAPTER 3

On sumptuary laws in aristocracy

The misfortune of the badly constituted aristocracy is that its nobles
have wealth but should not spend it; luxury, which is contrary to the
spirit of moderation, should be banished from it. Therefore, there are
only the veiy poor who cannot get anything and the very rich who
cannot spend anything.

In Venice the laws force the nobles to be modest in their tastes. They
are so accustomed to thrift that only courtesans can make them give up
money. This course is taken to maintain industry: the most despised
women spend without danger, while those who pay them tribute lead
the most obscure lives in the world.

The good Greek republics had admirable institutions in this regard.
The rich used their silver for festivals, musical choruses, chariots, race
horses, and onerous magistracies. Wealth there was as burdensome as
poverty.

chapter 4

On sumptuary laws in monarchies

“The Suiones, a German nation, honor wealth,” says Tacitus , 6 “which
makes them live under the government of one alone.” This means that
luxury is singularly appropriate in monarchies and that they do not have
to have sumptuary laws.

As wealth is unequally divided in accord with the constitution of
monarchies, there must be luxury. If wealthy men do not spend much,
the poor will die of hunger. There the rich must indeed spend in
proportion to the inequality of fortunes, and, as we have said, luxury
must increase in this proportion. Individual wealth has increased only
because it has removed physical necessities from a part of the citizens;
these must, therefore, be returned to them.

Thus, for the monarchical state to sustain itself, luxury has to
increase from the laborer to the artisan, to the merchant, to the nobles,

6 [Tacitus] Germania [44].

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Part i

to the magistrates, to the great lords, to the principal revenue officers,
to the princes; otherwise, all would be lost.

In the Roman senate, composed of serious magistrates, jurists, and
men filled with the idea of the earliest times, one proposed, under
Augustus, the correction of the mores and luxury of women. It is
interesting to see in Dio 7 the art with which Augustus evaded the
importunate demands of these senators. This is because he was
founding a monarchy and dissolving a republic.

Under Tiberius, the aediles in the senate proposed the reestablish-
ment of the old sumptuary laws . 8 This enlightened prince opposed it,
saying, “The state could not continue to exist, given the present
situation. How could Rome live? How could the provinces live? We
were frugal when we were citizens of a single town; today we consume
the wealth of the whole universe; masters and slaves are made to work
for us.” He saw clearly that they could no longer have sumptuary laws.

When, under the same emperor, it was proposed to the senate that
governors be prohibited from taking their wives with them to the
provinces because of the dissoluteness that accompanied them, the
proposal was rejected. It was said that the examples of the harshness of the
ancients had been changed into a more pleasant way of living . 9 One felt that
there had to be different mores.

Luxury is* therefore, necessary in monarchical states; it is also
necessary in despotic states. In the former, it is a use of the liberty one
possesses; in the latter, it is an abuse of the advantages of one’s
servitude, when a slave, chosen by his master to tyrannize over the
other slaves, uncertain of enjoying each day’s fortune on the following
day, has no other felicity than that of sating the arrogance, desires, and
voluptuousness of each day.

All this leads to a reflection: republics end in luxury; monarchies, in
poverty . 10

7 Cass. Dio [Historia Romatia], bk. 54 [54.16.3-6].

s Tzcitus, Annates, bk. 3 [3.53].

9 “Much of the harshness of the ancients has been changed into a better and more pleasant
manner” [L.]. Tacitus, Annates, bk. 3 [3.34].

,0 “Opulence soon gives rise to poverty” [L.]. Florus [ Epitome rerum Romanorum ], bk. 3
[1.47.12; 3.12.12],

IOO

Sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women

CHAPTER 5

In which cases sumptuary laws are useful in a monarchy

In the middle of the thirteenth century in Aragon sumptuary laws were
made in the spirit of the republic, if not for some particular cases. James
I ordered that neither the king nor any of his subjects could eat more
than two sorts of meat at any meal and that each meat would be
prepared in only one way, unless it was game that one had killed
oneself . 11

In our time, sumptuary laws have been made in Sweden, but they
have a different purpose from those of Aragon.

A state can make sumptuary laws with the purpose of an absolute
frugality; this is the spirit of sumptuary laws in republics, and the nature
of the thing shows that this was the purpose of the laws in Aragon.

Sumptuary laws can also have relative frugality for their purpose,
when a state, feeling that foreign commodities are too highly priced and
that so many exports of its own commodities are required that it would
deprive itself of more of what it needs than these foreign commodities
can satisfy, absolutely prohibits their entrance; and this is the spirit of
the laws made in our time in Sweden . 12 These are the only sumptuary
laws suitable to monarchies.

In general, the poorer the state, the more it is ruined by relative
luxury, and the more, consequently, it must have relative sumptuary
laws. The richer the state, the more its relative luxury enriches it, and
one must be careful not to make relative sumptuary laws there. We shall
explain this better in the book on commerce . 13 Here only absolute
luxury is in question.

1 1 Constitution of James I in [Pierre de Marca] Marca Hispanica, anno 1234, art. 6, p. 1 429
[Appendix, chap. 513, art. 6, pp. 1429-1430; 1688 edn].

lz Exquisite wines and other precious merchandise were forbidden there.

13 See bk. 20, chap. 20 [below].

IOI

Part i

CHAPTER 6

On luxury in China

Particular reasons can require sumptuary laws in some states. The
people can become so numerous through the force of the climate, and
on the other hand, their means of subsistence can be so uncertain that it
is well for all the people to cultivate the land. In these states luxury is
dangerous and sumptuary laws should be strict. Thus, in order to know
if luxury must be encouraged or proscribed, one should first observe
the relation between the number of people and the ease of giving them
enough to eat. In England the soil produces much more grain than is
needed to feed both those who cultivate the land and those who provide
clothing; there they can have frivolous arts and, consequently, luxury.
In France enough wheat grows to feed both those who work the land
and those employed in manufacture; in addition, commerce with
foreigners can bring in return for frivolous things so many necessary
things that luxury should scarcely be feared there.

In China, on the other hand, women are so fertile and humankind
multiplies so fast that the fields, even heavily cultivated, scarcely suffice
to produce enough food for the inhabitants. Consequently, luxury is
pernicious there ^nd the spirit of work and economy is as requisite as in
any republic whatever . 14 One must apply oneself to the necessary arts
and avoid those of voluptuousness.

This is the spirit of the fine ordinances of the Chinese emperors.
“Our ancestors,” says an emperor of the T’ang family , 15 “took it as a
maxim that if there were a man who did not plow the fields, a woman
who did not spin, someone in the empire would suffer from cold or
hunger ...” And on this principle he had an infinite number of the
bonze monasteries destroyed/

The third emperor of the twenty-first dynasty , 16 when given precious

14 Luxury has always been checked there.

15 In an ordinance reported by Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de I’Empirede la
Chine), vol. 2, p. 497 [“La cinquieme des annees nominees Ho i Tchang”; 2, 596-597 H;
2, 496-497 P],

16 Description de I'Empire de la Chine, twenty-first dynasty, in the work of Father [Jean
Baptistejdu Halde, vol. 1 [“21st Dynasty, TchingTsou, 3rd Emperor”; 1,447 H; 1,509

P; 1,455 L].

4 The “bonze” were Buddhist monks.

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Sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women

stones found in a mine, had it closed, not wanting to tire his people with
working for what could neither feed nor clothe them.

“Our luxury is so great,” said Kia-y , 17 “that the people embroider
the shoes of the boys and girls whom they are obliged to sell.” Is it by
occupying so many men with making garments for one that many
people are kept from lacking clothes? For each plowman there are ten
men who eat the yield of the lands: is this the way to keep many people
from lacking food?

l7 In a speech reported by Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de I’Empire de la
Chine), vol. 2, p. 418 [“Discours ou memoire de Kia-y”; 2, 499-500 H; 2, 418 P].

CHAPTER 7

A fatal consequence of luxury in China

One sees in the history of China that it has had twenty-two dynasties in
succession; that is, it has suffered twenty-two general revolutions, not
counting an infinite number of particular ones. The first three
dynasties lasted a long time, because they were wisely governed and
because the empire was less extensive than it was to become. But in
general, one can say that all these dynasties began well enough. Virtue,
care, and vigilance are necessary for China; they were present at the
beginning of the dynasties and missing at the end. Indeed, it was
natural for emperors raised on the hardship of war and successful in
forcing a family inundated by delights from the throne, to preserve the
virtue they had found so useful and to fear the voluptuousness they had
seen to be so fatal. But, after these first three or four princes,
corruption, luxury, laziness, and delights master their successors; they
shut themselves in the palace, their spirits grow weak, their lives are
short, the family declines; the important men rise up, the eunuchs gain
credit, children only are put on the throne; the palace becomes the
enemy of the empire; the lazy people living there ruin those who work;
the emperor is killed or destroyed by a usurper, who founds a family,
whose successor in the third or fourth generation goes into the same
palace and shuts himself in again.

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Part i

CHAPTER 8

On public continence

So many imperfections are attached to the loss ofvirtue in women, their
whole soul is so markedly degraded by this, and when this principal
point is removed so many others fall, that in a popular state one can
regard public incontinence as the last misfortune and as assurance of a
change in the constitution.

Thus good legislators have required a certain gravity in the mores of
women. They have proscribed from their republics not only vice but
even the appearance of vice. They have banished even that commerce
of gallantly that produces laziness, that causes women to corrupt even
before being corrupted, that puts a high price on every trifle and
reduces the price on what is important, and that makes one no longer
conduct oneself by any but the maxims of ridicule that women
understand so well how to establish.

CHAPTER9

On the condition of women in the various governments

In monarchies women have so little restraint because, called to court by
the distinction of ranks, they there take up the spirit of liberty that is
almost the only one tolerated. Each man uses their charms and their
passions to advance his fortune; and as their weakness allows them not
arrogance but vanity, luxury always reigns there with them.

In despotic states women do not introduce luxury, but they are
themselves an object of luxury. They should be kept in extreme slavery.
Each man follows the spirit of the government and brings to his home
what he sees established outside of it. As the laws in these states are
severe and executed on the spot, one fears that women’s liberty could
be a cause for bringing suit. Women’s quarrels, their indiscretions,
their aversions, their inclinations, their jealousies, their spiteful
remarks, in short that art by which narrow souls affect generous ones,
cannot be without consequence there.

In addition, as the princes in these states trifle with human nature,

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Sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women

they have several wives, and a thousand considerations oblige them to
enclose their women.

In republics women are free by the laws and captured by the mores;
luxury is banished there and with it, corruption and vices.

In the Greek towns where one did not live under the religion which
established that even among men the purity of mores is a part of virtue;
in the Greek towns where a blind vice reigned unbridled, where love
took only a form one dare not mention while only friendship was to be
found within marriages , 18 women’s virtue, simplicity, and chastity were
such that one has scarcely ever seen a people who had a better police in
this regard .' 9

18 “As for true love,” says Plutarch in the Moralia, A matorius, p. 600 [750c], “women have no
part in it.” He spoke as did his age. See Xenophon, in the dialog entitled Hiero [1.3 1-36].

19 In Athens there was a particular magistrate who watched over the conduct of women.

CHAPTER 10

On the domestic tribunal among the Romans

Unlike the Greeks, the Romans had no special magistrates to inspect
women’s conduct. The censors paid no more attention to women than
to the rest of the republic. The institution of a domestic tribunal 20
replaced the magistracy established among the Greeks . 21

The husband assembled the wife’s relatives and judged her before
them . 22 This tribunal maintained mores in the republic. But these same
mores maintained this tribunal. Its task was to judge not only the
violation of laws but also the violation of mores. Now, in order to judge
the violation of mores, one must have mores.

The penalties of this tribunal had to be arbitrary as, indeed, they

20 Romulus instituted this tribunal, as appears in Dion. Hal. \Ant. Rom.], bk. 2, p. 96
[2.25.6].

21 See Livy, bk. 39 [39.18.6], for the usage made of this tribunal at the time of the conspiracy
of the Bacchantes; the assemblies which corrupted the mores of women and youth were
deemed conspiracies against the republic.

22 It appears from Dion. \Ant. Rom.], bk. 2 [2.25.6], that by the institution of Romulus, the
husband, in ordinary cases, judged alone in the presence of the wife’s relatives and that in
great crimes, he judged along with five of them. Thus Ulpian [Fragmenta], tit. 6, para. 9,
12-13 [6.9.12—13] distinguishes in judgments on mores between those he calls serious
and those that are less so: mores graviores, mores leviores.

105

Part i

were, for all that concerns mores and all that concerns the rules of
modesty can scarcely be included in a code of laws. It is easy to regulate
by laws what one owes others; it is difficult to include in them all that
one owes oneself.

The domestic tribunal was concerned with the general conduct of
women. But there was one crime which, besides being reproved by this
tribunal, was also submitted to public accusation: this crime was
adultery, either because such a serious violation of mores in a republic
is of interest to the government, or because the profligacy of the wife
might imply that of the husband, or finally, because one feared that
even honest people might prefer hiding the crime to punishing it, might
prefer ignorance to vengeance.

CHAPTER II

How institutions changed in Rome with the government

Just as the domestic tribunal presupposed mores, public accusation
also presupposed them; and this made both of them collapse along with
the mores and come to an end with the republic . 23

Th« establishment of perpetual questions, that is, the division of
jurisdiction among the praetors, and the custom that was gradually
introduced that the praetors themselves judged all suits , 24 weakened
the use of the domestic tribunal; the evidence for this change is the
surprise registered by the historians, who regard the judgments
Tiberius rendered through this tribunal as singular facts and as the
renewal of the old practice.

The establishment of the monarchy and the change in mores also
brought public accusation to an end. One could fear that a dishonest
man, stung by a woman’s sneers, indignant at her refusals, outraged
even by her virtue, might form the design of ruining her. The Julian law
ordered that or*: could accuse a woman of adultery only after accusing
her husband of encouraging her profligacies, a stipulation which

23 “Judgments in accord with custom (which previously had had a place in the ancient laws,
although not frequently used), are now entirely abolished” [L.; M.’s parentheses]. Law
1 1, para. 2, Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 5.1 7.1 1.2 jab]]; de repudiis et judicio de moribus
sublato.

24, Judicia extraordinaria: a judicial procedure that is not the ordinary one.

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Sumptuary laws , luxury, and the condition of women

greatly restrained this accusation and reduced it, so to speak, to
nothing . 25

Sixtus V seemed to want to renew public accusation . 26 But one has to
reflect only a little to see that this law, in a monarchy such as his, was
even more out of place than in any other.

25 Constantine removed it entirely: “It is an unworthy thing,’’ he said, “that tranquil
marriages should be disturbed by the audacity of strangers.” [Corpus Jims Civilis, Code
9.9.29 (30); ad legem Juliam de adulteriis et de stupro.]

26 Sixtus V ordered that a husband who would not complain of the debauches of his wife be
punished with death. See [Gregorio] Leti [The Life of Pope Sixtus V, bk. 6; p. 273; 1779
Eng. edn].

CHAPTER 12

On the tutelage of women among the Romans

The Roman institutions put women under perpetual guardianship
unless they were under the authority of a husband . 27 This guardianship
was given to the closest male relative and it appears, according to a
popular phrase , 28 that the women were very hemmed in by it. This was
good for the republic, and was not necessary in the monarchy . 29

It seems, according to the various law codes of the barbarians, that
among the early Germans, women were also under perpetual
guardianship . 30 This usage passed into the monarchies they founded
but it did not continue to exist.

27 “Except by marriage when she comes into the hands of her husband” [L.].

28 “Verily, do not be a paternal uncle to me” [L.] [Horace, Satires 2.3.88].

29 The Papian law ordained, under Augustus, that wives who had had three children would
be exempt from this tutelage.

50 Among the Germans this tutelage was called mundeburdium.

CHAPTER 13

On penalties established by the emperors against
women ’s debaucheries

Thejulian law established a penalty for adultery. But this law and those
made later on the same subject were far from indicating the goodness
of the mores; on the contrary, they indicated their debasement.

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Part i

The whole political system with regard to women changed in the
monarchy. It was no longer a question of establishing the purity of their
mores but of punishing their crimes. New laws were made to punish
these crimes only because the violations, which were not the same as
the crimes, were no longer punished.

The dreadful excesses of the mores obliged the emperors to make
laws to check immodesty at some point; but their intention was not to
correct mores generally. Positive facts, reported by historians, are more
a proof of this than all the laws could be proof of the contrary. One can
see in Dio both the conduct of Augustus in this regard and his evasion
of the demands that were made of him when he was praetor and
censor . 31

In the historians, one finds rigid judgments rendered under
Augustus and Tiberius against the indecency of certain Roman ladies;
but by acquainting us with the spirit of these reigns, they acquaint us
with the spirit of these judgments.

Augustus and Tiberius thought principally of punishing the
debauchery of their female relatives. They did not punish dissolute
mores but a certain crime of impiety or of high treason 32 that they had
invented, which was useful both for instilling respect and for taking
revenge. Hence the strong protests of the Roman authors against this
^tyranny.

The penalty in the Julian law was light . 33 The emperors wanted the
penalty they had put into the law to be increased in the judgments. This
was an object of the historians’ invective. They did not examine
whether the women deserved to be punished, but whether the law had
been violated in order to punish them.

31 When a young man, who had had evil commerce with his wife before their marriage, was
brought before Augustus, Augustus hesitated at length, daring neither to approve nor to
punish these things. Finally, collecting his wits, he said, “Seditions have been the cause of
great evils; let us forget them.” Cass. Dio [Historia Romana], bk. 54 [54.16.6]. As the
senators had asked him for rulings on the mores of women, he avoided this request, telling
them to “correct their wives as he had corrected his own.” At that they begged him to tell
them how he dealt with his wife, a highly indiscreet question, it seems to me.

32 “In calling what is a common fault between men and women by the serious names of
sacrilege and treason, [Augustus] overstepped the clemency of our ancestors and that of
his own laws” [L.]. Tacitus, Annales, bk. 3 [3.24].

33 This law is reported in the Digest , but the penalty was not included. One judges it to have
been exile by relegation, since that for incest was only exile by deportation [with loss of civil
rights]. The law si quis viduarn and following [Corpus Juris Civilis , Digest 48.18.5]; de
questionibus.

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Sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women

One of the principal tyrannies of Tiberius 34 was his abuse of the old
laws. When he wanted to push some Roman matron beyond the penalty
set by the Julian law, he reestablished the domestic tribunal for her . 35

These provisions in respect to women involved only the families of
senators, not those of the people. One wanted pretexts for accusing the
important men, and women’s misconduct provided innumerable ones.

Finally, what I have said, that the goodness of mores is not the
principle of the government of one alone, was never more verified than
under these first emperors; and if there were any doubt about it, one
would have only to read Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, and Martial.

34 “It was characteristic of Tiberius to conceal newly invented crimes by venerable words”
[L.]. Tacitus [Annales 4.19).

35 “For her [Appuleia Varilia, the grandniece of Augustus], he [Tiberius] deprecated the
more severe penalty, and following ancestral precedent, recommended that she be
removed by her relatives beyond the 200th milestone. The adulterer Manlius was
outlawed from both Italy and Africa” [L.]. Tacitus , Annales bk. 2 [2.50].

CHAPTER 14

Sumptuary lam among the Romans

We have spoken of public incontinence because it is joined to luxury; it
is always followed by luxury, and always follows luxury. If you leave the
impulses of the heart at liberty, how can you hamper the weaknesses of
the spirit?

In Rome, in addition to the general institutions, the censors had the
magistrates make several particular laws to keep women frugal. The
Fannian, Licinian, and Oppian laws had this purpose. One must see in
Livy 36 how agitated the senate became when the women demanded the
revocation of the Oppian Law. Valerius Maximus dates the epoch of
luxury among the Romans from the time of the repeal of this law.

36 [Livy] decade 4, bk. 4 [34.1-8].

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Part i

CHAPTER 15

On dowries and the advantages of marriage
in the various constitutions

Dowries should be of a considerable size in monarchies so that married
men can sustain their rank and its established luxury. They should be
of medium size in republics, where luxury should not reign . 37 They
should be nearly nothing in despotic states where women are, in a way,
slaves.

The community of goods between husband and wife introduced by
French laws is very suitable to monarchical government because it
interests women in domestic business and recalls them, as if in spite of
themselves, to the care of their households. It is less suitable in a
republic, where wives are more virtuous. It would be absurd in despotic
states, where wives are themselves almost always a part of the master’s
property.

Since women are, by their state, sufficiently inclined to marriage, the
advantages the law gives them over their husbands’ goods are useless.
But such advantages would be very pernicious in a republic, because
the individual wealth of wives produces luxury. In despotic states the
a<%antages of marriage should be the wife’s sustenance and nothing
more.

37 Marseilles was the wisest of the republics of her time; dowries could not exceed one
hundred ecus in silver and five in clothing, says Strabo [Geographical, bk. 4 [4.1.5]-

CHAPTER 16

A fine custom of the Samnites

The Samnites had a custom, which, in a small republic and especially
one in the situation theirs had, produced admirable effects. All the
young people were assembled and judged. The one who was declared
best took for his wife the girl he wanted; he who had the next largest
vote then chose; and so on . 38 It was admirable to consider among the

38 Fragments of Nicholas of Damascus [FGrH, vol. 2 a, 384], from Stobaeus [Morum
mirabilum collectio, 109], in the collection by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

no

Sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women

goods of the boys only the fine qualities and the services rendered to the
homeland. He who was richest in these sorts of goods would choose a
girl from among the whole nation. Love, beauty, chastity, virtue, birth,
even wealth, all were, so to speak, the dowry of virtue. It would be
difficult to imagine a reward that was nobler, greater, less burdensome
to a small state, or more able to have an effect on both sexes.

The Samnites were descendants of the Lacedaemonians; and Plato,
whose institutions are only the perfection of the laws of Lycurgus, gave
almost the same law . 39

39 He even permits them to see one another more frequently. [Plato, Republic 459(1-4600;
Lams 77ie-772a.]

CHAPTER 17

On administration by women

It is against reason and against nature for women to be mistresses in the
house, as was established among the Egyptians, but not for them to
govern an empire. In the first case, their weak state does not permit
them to be preeminent; in the second, their very weakness gives them
more gentleness and moderation, which, rather than the harsh and
ferocious virtues, can make for a good government.

In the Indies government by women turns out very well; it is
established that, if the males do not come from a mother of the same
blood, a daughter whose mother is of royal blood succeeds to the
throne . 40 She is given a certain number of people to help her carry the
weight of the government. According to Mr. Smith , 41 government by
women also turns out very well in Africa. If one adds to this the
examples of Muscovy and of England, one will see that they succeed
equally well in moderate government and in despotic government.

w Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, 14 [Lettre du P. Bouchet, Pontichery, October 2, 1714; 14,
382-389; 1720 edn].

41 [William Smith] A Nem Voyage to Guinea, pt. 2, p. 165 of the translation [pp. 208-209;
1967 edn] on the kingdom of Angona on the Gold Coast.

1 1 1

BOOK 8

On the corruption of the principles of
the three governments

CHAPTER I

The general idea of this book

The corruption of each government almost always begins with that of
its principles.

CHAPTER 2

On the corruption of the principle of democracy

The" principle of democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of
equality is lost but also when the spirit of extreme equality is taken up
and each one wants to be the equal of those chosen to command. So the
people, finding intolerable even the power they entrust to the others,
want to do everything themselves: to deliberate for the senate, to
execute for the magistrates, and to cast aside all the judges.

Then there can no longer be virtue in the republic. The people want
to perform the magistrates’ functions; therefore, the magistrates are no
longer respected. The senate’s deliberations no longer carry weight;
therefore, there is no longer consideration for senators or, conse-
quently, for elders. And if there is no respect for elders, neither will
there be any for fathers; husbands no longer merit deference nor
masters, submission. Everyone will come to love this license; the
restraint of commanding will be as tiresome as that of obeying had
been. Women, children, and slaves will submit to no one. There will no
longer be mores or love of order, and finally, there will no longer be
virtue.

One sees in Xenophon’s Symposium an artless depiction of a republic

Corruption of the principles of the governments

whose people have abused equality. Each guest in turn gives his reason
for being pleased with himself. “I am pleased with myself,” says
Charmides, “because of my poverty. When I was rich I was obliged to
pay court to slanderers, well aware that I was more likely to receive ill
from them than to cause them any; the republic constantly asked for a
new payment; I could not travel. Since becoming poor, I have acquired
authority; no one threatens me, I threaten the others; I can go or stay.
The rich now rise from their seats and make way for me. Now I am a
king, I was a slave; I used to pay a tax to the republic, today the republic
feeds me; I no longer fear loss, I expect to acquire.” 0

The people fall into this misfortune when those to whom they
entrust themselves, wanting to hide their own corruption, seek to
corrupt the people. To keep the people from seeing their own
ambition, they speak only of the people’s greatness; to keep the people
from perceiving their avarice, they constantly encourage that of the
people.

Corruption will increase among those who corrupt, and it will
increase among those who are already corrupted. The people will
distribute among themselves all the public funds; and, just as they will
join the management of business to their laziness, they will want to join
the amusements of luxury to their poverty. But given their laziness and
their luxury, only the public treasure can be their object.

One must not be astonished to see votes given for silver. One cannot
give the people much without taking even more from them; but, in
order to take from them, the state must be overthrown. The more the
people appear to take advantage of their liberty, the nearer they
approach the moment they are to lose it. Petty tyrants are formed,
having all the vices of a single one. What remains of liberty soon
becomes intolerable. A single tyrant rises up, and the people lose
everything, even the advantages of their corruption.

Therefore, democracy has to avoid two excesses: the spirit of
inequality, which leads it to aristocracy or to the government of one
alone, and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads it to the despotism
of one alone, as the despotism of one alone ends by conquest.

It is true that those who corrupted the Greek republics did not always
become tyrants. They had applied themselves more to eloquence than
to military arts; besides, there was in the hearts of all Greeks an

"Xenophon, Symposium 4.30-3 1 .

”3

Part i

implacable hatred for those who had overthrown the republican
government, which made anarchy crumble into dissolution instead of
turning into tyranny.

But Syracuse, situated among many little oligarchies that had
become tyrannies,' Syracuse, whose senate 2 is scarcely ever mentioned
in history, endured misfortunes not produced by ordinary corruption.
This town, always licentious 3 or oppressed, equally tormented by its
liberty and by its servitude, always receiving the one or the other like a
tempest, and, in spite of its power abroad, always determined to
revolution by the smallest foreign force, had an immense population
whose only choice was the cruel one between giving itself to a tyrant
and being one.

’See Plutarch in the lives of Timoleon and Dion [ Vit . ] .

2 It is the Six Hundred of which Diodorus [Siculus] speaks [Bibliotheca historica 19.5.6].

3 After driving out the tyrants, they made citizens of foreigners and mercenary soldiers,
which caused civil wars. Aristotle, Politics , bk. 5, chap. 3 [ 1 303338-130362], As * e P e0 P le
had been the cause of the victory over the Athenians, the republic was changed. Ibid.,
chap. 4 [t 304327-29]. The passion of two young magistrates, the first taking a boy away
from the other, the latter debauching the wife of the former, made the form of this republic
change. Ibid., bk. 7, chap. 4 [1303617-26].

CHAPTER 3

On the spirit of extreme equality

As far as the sky is from the earth, so far is the true spirit of equality
from the spirit of extreme equality. The former consists neither in
making everyone command nor in making no one command, but in
obeying and commanding one’s equals. It seeks not to have no master
but to have only one’s equals for masters.

In the state of nature, men are born in equality, but they cannot
remain so. Society makes them lose their equality, and they become
equal again only through the laws.

The difference between the democracy that is regulated and the one
that is not is that, in the former, one is equal only as a citizen, and, in the
latter, one is also equal as a magistrate, senator, judge, father, husband,
or master.

The natural place of virtue is with liberty, but virtue can no more be
found with extreme liberty than with servitude.

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Corruption of the principles of the governments

chapter 4

A particular cause of the corruption of the people

Great successes, especially those to which the people contribute much,
make them so arrogant that it is no longer possible to guide them.
Jealous of the magistrates, they become jealous of the magistracy;
enemies of those who govern, they soon become enemies of the
constitution. In this way the victory at Salamis over the Persians
corrupted the republic of Athens ; 4 in this way the defeat of the
Athenians ruined the republic of Syracuse . 5

The republic of Marseilles never underwent these great shifts from
lowliness to greatness; thus, it always governed itself with wisdom;
thus, it preserved its principles.

4 Aristotle, Pol., bk. 5, chap. 4 [1304322-24].

5 Ibid. [Aristotle, Pol. 1304327-29).

CHAPTER 5

On the corruption of the principle of aristocracy

Aristocracy is corrupted when the power of the nobles becomes
arbitrary; there can no longer be virtue either in those who govern or in
those who are governed.

When the ruling families observe the laws, it is a monarchy that has
many monarchs and is quite good by its nature; almost all these
monarchs are bound by the laws. But when these families fail to
observe the laws, it is a despotic state that has many despots.

In this case the republic continues to exist only with regard to the
nobles and only among them. The body that governs is a republic and
the body that is governed is a despotic state; they are the two most ill-
matched bodies in the world.

Extreme corruption occurs when nobility becomes hereditary ; 6 the
nobles can scarcely remain moderate. If they are few in number, their
power is greater, but their security diminishes; if they are greater in
number, their power is less and their security greater; so that power

6 The aristocracy changes into an oligarchy.

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Part i

keeps increasing and security diminishing up to the despot in whose
person lies the extreme of power and danger.

Therefore, a large number of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy will
make the government less violent; but as there will be little virtue there,
one will fall into a spirit of nonchalance, laziness, and abandon, which
will make a state with neither force nor spring . 7

An aristocracy can sustain the force of its principle if the laws are
such that they make the nobles feel more strongly the perils and
fatigues of command than its delights, and if the state is in such a
situation that it has something to dread, and if security comes from
within and uncertainty from without.

A certain kind of confidence is the glory and security of a monarchy,
but, by contrast, a republic must dread something . 8 Fear of the Persians
maintained the laws among the Greeks. Carthage and Rome intimi-
dated one another and were mutually strengthened. How singular!
The more secure these states are, the more, as with tranquil waters,
they are subject to corruption.

7 Venice is one of the republics which has best corrected, by its laws, the drawbacks of
hereditary aristocracy.

8 Justin attributes the extinction of virtue in Athens to the death of Epaminondas. No longer
rivalrous, the Athenians spent their income on festivals, “more frequently in attendance at
tho- table [theater is the reading in modem texts] than at the camp” [L.]. Then the
Macedonians came out of obscurity. [Justin, Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum], bk. 6
[6.9.4].

CHAPTER 6

On the corruption of the principle of monarchy

Just as democracies are ruined when the people strip the senate, the
magistrates, and the judges of their functions, monarchies are corrup-
ted when one gradually removes the prerogatives of the established
bodies* or the privileges of the towns. In the first case, one approaches
the despotism of all; in the other, the despotism of one alone.

“What ruined the dynasties of Tsin and Sui,” says a Chinese author,
“is that the princes, instead of limiting themselves like the ancients to a
general inspection, which is the only one worthy of a sovereign, wanted

b prerogatives des corps.

1 16

Corruption of the principles of the governments

to govern everything by themselves without an intermediary .” 9 Here
the Chinese author gives us the cause for the corruption of almost all
monarchies.

A monarchy is ruined when a prince believes he shows his power
more by changing the order of things than by following it, when he
removes the functions that are natural to some to give them arbitrarily
to others, and when he is more enamoured of what he fancies than of
what he wills.

A monarchy is ruined when the prince, referring everything to
himself exclusively, reduces the state to its capital, the capital to the
court, and the court to his person alone.

Finally, it is ruined when a prince misunderstands his authority, his
situation, and his people’s love, and when he does not realize that a
monarch should consider himself secure, just as a despot should
believe himself imperiled.

9 “Compilation of works done under the Ming,” reported by Father [Jean Baptiste] du
Halde [ Description de VEmpire de la Chine 2, 781 H; 2, 648 P],

CHAPTER 7

Continuation of the same subject

The principle of monarchy has been corrupted when the highest
dignities are the marks of the greatest servitude, when one divests the
important men of the people’s respect and makes them into vile
instruments of arbitrary power.

It has been corrupted even more when honor has been set in
opposition to honors and when one can be covered at the same time
with infamy 10 and with dignities.

It has been corrupted when the prince changes his justice into

10 Under the reign of Tiberius statues were raised and the triumphal ornaments were given
to informers, which so degraded these honors that those who had deserved them scorned
them. Fragment of [Cass.] Dio [ Historia Romana ], bk. 58 [58.4.8], drawn from the Extracts
of Virtues and Vices of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. See in Tacitus how Nero, on the
discovery and punishment of a supposed conspiracy, gave Petronius Turpilianus, Nerva,
and Tigellinus triumphal ornaments. [Tacitus] Annales, bk. 14 [15.72]. See also how the
generals scorned to wage war because they despised the honors. “The distinction of the
triumph having been debased” [L.]. Tacitus, Annales, bk. 13 [13.53].

severity, when he puts a Medusa’s head on his breast" as did the
Roman emperors, and when he takes on that menacing and terrible air
which Commodus required in his statues . 12

The principle of monarchy has been corrupted when some
singularly cowardly souls grow vain from the greatness of their
servitude and when they believe that what makes them owe everything
to the prince makes them owe nothing to their homeland.

But, if it is true (as has been seen through the ages) that insofar as the
monarch’s power becomes immense, his security diminishes, is it not a
crime of high treason against him to corrupt this power to the extent of
changing its nature?

"In this state the prince well knew what the principle of his government was.

"Herodianus [Ab excessu divi Mara i. 14.9J.

CHAPTER 8

A danger of the corruption of the principle of monarchical
government

It is nora drawback when the state passes from moderate government
to moderate government, as from republic to monarchy or from
monarchy to republic, but rather when it falls and collapses from
moderate government into despotism.

Most European peoples are still governed by mores. But if, by a long
abuse of power or by a great conquest, despotism became established at
a certain time, neither mores nor climate would hold firm, and in this
fine part of the world, human nature would suffer, at least for a while,
the insults heaped upon it in the other three.

CHAPTER 9

How much the nobility is inclined to defend the throne

The English nobility was buried with Charles I in the debris of the
throne; and before that, when Philip II sounded the name of liberty in
French ears, the crown had always been sustained by that nobility

Corruption of the principles of the governments

which holds it an honor to obey a king but regards it as the sovereign
infamy to share power with the people.

The house of Austria tried persistently to oppress the Hungarian
nobility. It did not know how much it would one day prize that nobility.
It sought among these peoples silver they did not have; it did not see the
men who were there. When the many princes had divided the states of
the Hungarian monarchy among themselves, all its pieces fell, so to
speak, one on top of the other, immobile and inactive: the only life that
then remained was in the nobility, which grew indignant, forgot
everything in order to fight, and believed that its glory lay in dying and
in forgiving.

CHAPTER IO

On the corruption of the principle of despotic government

The principle of despotic government is endlessly corrupted because it
is corrupt by its nature. Other governments are destroyed because
particular accidents violate their principle; this one is destroyed by its
internal vice if accidental causes do not prevent its principle from
becoming corrupt. Therefore, it can maintain itself only when circum-
stances, which arise from the climate, the religion, and the situation or
the genius of the people, force it to follow some order and to suffer
some rule. These things force its nature without changing it; its ferocity
remains; it is, for a while, tractable.

CHAPTER 1 1

Natural effects of the goodness and of the corruption of the
principles

Once the principles of the government are corrupted, the best laws
become bad and turn against the state; when their principles are sound,
bad laws have the effect of good ones; the force of the principle pulls
everything along.

The Cretans, in order to keep the highest magistrates dependent on
the laws, used a very singular means: that of insurrection. Part of the

Part i

citizenry would rise up , 13 put the magistrates to flight, and oblige them
to return to private life. This was supposedly done in pursuance of the
law. Such an institution, which established sedition in order to prevent
the abuse of power, seemed bound to overthrow any republic at all. It
did not destroy that of Crete: here is why . 14

When the ancients wanted to speak of a people who had the greatest
love of the homeland, they cited the Cretans. The homeland, a tender
name among the Cretans , said Plato . 15 They called it by a name that
expresses a mother’s love for her children . 16 Now, love of the homeland
corrects everything/

The laws of Poland have also their insurrection. But the drawbacks
that result from it show clearly that only the people of Crete were in a
state to use such a remedy successfully.

The gymnastic exercises established among the Greeks depended
no less on the goodness of the principle of government. “The
Lacedaemonians and the Cretans,” said Plato , 17 “opened those
famous academies that gave them such a distinguished rank in the
world. At first modesty was alarmed, but it yielded to public useful-
ness.” In Plato’s time, these institutions were remarkable ; 18 they were
related to a great purpose, the military art. But when the Greeks were
no longer virtuous, these institutions destroyed the military art itself;
on# no longer went down to the wrestling arena to be trained but to be
corrupted . 19

Plutarch tells us 20 that, in his time, the Romans thought these games
were the principal cause of the servitude into which the Greeks had

13 Aristotle, Pol, bk. 2, chap. 10 [1 272b!— 1 5].

14 One always united first against the enemies from the outside; this was called syncretism.
Plutarch, Moralia, p. 88 [De fratemo amore 490b].

15 [Plato] Republic, bk. 9 [573d].

16 Plutarch, Moralia, in the treatise An seni respublica gerenda sit [792c].

,7 [Plato] Republic, bk. 5 [452c-dJ.

18 Gymnastic was divided into two parts, dancing and wresding. In Crete there were the
armed dances of the Curettes; in Lacedaemonia, those of Castor and Pollux; in Athens,
the armed dances of Pallas, quite proper for those who are not yet of an age to go to war.
Wresding is the image of war, says Plato, Laws, bk. 7 [8i4d; see also 795e~796d]. He
praises in antiquity the establishment of only two dances, the pacific and the pyrrhic. See
how the latter dance was applied to the military art. Plato, ibid. [Laws 8i4d-8i6dJ.

19 “. . . Or the lustful wresding arenas of the Lacedaemonians who are beloved of Leda”
[L.]. Martial [Epigrammaton\, bk. 4, epig. 55 [4.55.6-7].

20 [Piutarch] Moralia, in the treatise Quaestiones Romanae [bk. 2, ques. 40, 274d-e[.

r These observations are reinforced by the fact that the word palrie, “homeland,” is a
feminine noun, and easily lends itself to personification as a mother.

120

Corruption of the principles of the governments

fallen. On the contrary: it was the Greeks’ servitude that had corrupted
these exercises. In Plutarch’s time, 2 ’ the parks, where one fought
naked, and the wrestling matches, made the young people cowardly,
inclined them to an infamous love and made only dancers of them; but
in Epaminondas’ time, wrestling had brought victory to the Thebans at
the battle of Leuctra . 22

There are few laws that are not good when the state has not lost its
principles; and, as Epicurus said, speaking of wealth, “It is not the
drink that is spoiled, it is the jar.”

21 Plutarch, ibid. [Moralia, Quaestiones Romanae, bk. 2, ques. 40; 274d-e].

22 Plutarch, Moralia, Quaestionum convivialium, bk. 2 [bk. 2, ques. 5; 639^6403).

CHAPTER 12

Continuation of the same subject

In Rome, judges were taken from the order of senators. The Gracchi
transferred this prerogative to the knights. Drusus gave it to both
senators and knights; Sulla, to senators alone; Cotta, to senators,
knights, and public treasurers. Caesar excluded these last. Antony
made decurions of senators, knights, and centurions.

When a republic has been corrupted, none of the ills that arise can be
remedied except by removing the corruption and recalling the
principles; every other correction is either useless or a new ill. So long
as Rome preserved its principles, judgments could be in the hands of
the senators without suffering abuse; but when it had been corrupted,
regardless of the body to which judgments were transferred, whether to
senators, knights, or public treasurers, or to two of these bodies, to all
three together, or to any other body at all, the result was always bad.
Knights had no more virtue than senators, public treasurers no more
than knights, and the latter as little as centurions.

When the Roman people had secured their participation in the
patrician magistracies, it was natural to think that their flatterers would
be the arbiters of the government. No: one saw these people, who had
opened the common magistracies to plebeians, always elect patricians.
Because the people were virtuous, they were magnanimous; because
they were free, they scorned power. But when they had lost th'dr
principles, the more power they had, the less carefully they managed it,

121

Part i

until finally, having become their own tyrant and their own slave, they
lost the strength of liberty and fell into the weakness of license.

CHAPTER 13

The effect of the oath on a virtuous people

There has never been a people, says Livy , 23 to whom dissoluteness
came later than to the Romans and among whom moderation and
poverty were honored longer.

The oath had so much force among these people that nothing
attached them more to the laws. In order to observe an oath, they often
did what they would never have done for glory or for the homeland.

When the consul Quinctius Cincinnatus wanted to raise an army
against the Aequi and the Volscians, the tribunes objected. “All right,
then,” he said, “let all those who swore their oath to the consul last year
march under my banner .” 24 In vain the tribunes cried out that no one
was still bound by that oath and that when it had been sworn, Quinctius
was a private citizen: the people were more religious than those who
attempted to guide them; the people would not listen to the distinctions
and Interpretations of the tribunes.

When these same people wanted to withdraw to the Mons Sacer,
they felt restrained by the oath they had sworn to follow the consuls to
war . 25 They formed the design of killing the consuls; they were made to
understand that the oath would none the less continue to exist. One can
judge their idea of the violation of an oath by the crime they wanted to
commit.

After the battle of Cannae, the people were frightened and wanted to
withdraw to Sicily; Scipio made them swear they would remain in
Rome; the fear of breaking their oath overcame every other fear. Rome
in the storm was a vessel held by two anchors: religion and mores.

23 [Livy] bk. 1 [Preface; 11],

24 Livy, bk. 3 (3. 20.4].

25 Livy, bk. 2 [2.32.1-2].

122

Corruption of the principles of the governments

CHAPTER 14

How the slightest change in the constitution entails
the ruin of the principles

Aristotle speaks to us of the republic of Carthage as a well-regulated
republic. Polybius tells us that during the Second Punic War , 26 the
trouble in Carthage was that the senate had lost almost all its authority.
Livy teaches us that when Hannibal returned to Carthage, he found the
magistrates and principal citizens turning the public revenues to their
own profit and abusing their power. Therefore, the virtue of the
magistrates fell along with the authority of the senate; everything
flowed from the same principle.

The prodigious results of the censorship among the Romans are well
known. At one time it became oppressive but was kept up because there
was more luxury than corruption. Clodius weakened it; by that weaken-
ing, corruption became even greater than luxury; and the censorship 27
abolished itself, so to speak. Having been altered, demanded, resumed,
and abandoned, it was entirely suspended until it became useless, I
mean during the reigns of Augustus and Claudius.

26 About a hundred years later [Polybius, Historia 6.51].

27 See [Cass.] Dio [Historia Romana j, bk. 38 [38.13.2]; Plutarch [Vit.], Cicero [29-30.2; 34. 1-
2]; Cicero, Epistolae ad Atticum, bk. 4, letters 10 and 15 [4.9 and 16]; [Pseudo] Asconius
[Pedianus], Sc&ofra Sangallensis Ciceronis , In Divinationem [3 .8; 2.189; see a ^ so Freinsheim,
Supplementorum Livianorum, 103. 109].

CHAPTER 15

Some very effective means of preserving the three principles

I shall be able to be understood only when the next four chapters have
been read.

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Part i

CHAPTER l6

Distinctive properties of the republic

It is in the nature of a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise,
it can scarcely continue to exist. In a large republic, there are large
fortunes, and consequently little moderation in spirits: the depositories
are too large to put in the hands of a citizen; interests become
particularized; at first a man feels he can be happy, great, and glorious
without his homeland; and soon, that he can be great only on the ruins
of his homeland.

In a large republic, the common good is sacrificed to a thousand
considerations; it is subordinated to exceptions; it depends upon
accidents. In a small one, the public good is better felt, better known,
lies nearer to each citizen; abuses are less extensive there and conse-
quently less protected.

What made Lacedaemonia last so long is that, after all its wars, it
always remained within its territory. Lacedaemonia’s only goal was
liberty” the only advantage of its liberty was glory.

It was in the spirit of the Greek republics for them to be as satisfied
with their lands as they were with their laws. Athens was seized with
ambition and transmitted it to Lacedaemonia; but this was in order to
command free peoples rather than to govern slaves; to be at the head of
the union rather than to shatter it. All was lost when a monarchy rose
up, a government whose spirit tends more toward expansion.

It is difficult for any government other than the republican to
continue to exist in a single town unless there are particular circum-
stances . 28 A prince of such a small state would naturally be inclined to
oppression because he would have a great power and few ways to enjoy
it or to make it respected; therefore he would trample his people
greatly. Then again, such a prince would be easily oppressed by a
foreign force or even by a domestic force; the people could come
together and unite against him at any moment. Now, when the prince of
a single town is driven from his town, the proceeding is finished; if he
has several towns, it has just begun.

28 As when a small sovereign maintains himself between two great states by their mutual
jealousy; but he exists only precariously.

124

Corruption of the principles of the governments

CHAPTER 17

Distinctive properties of monarchy

A monarchical state should be of a medium size. If it were small, it
would form itself into a republic; if it were quite extensive, the principal
men of the state, being great in themselves, away from the eyes of the
prince, with their court outside of his court, and, moreover, secured by
the laws and by the mores from hasty executions, could cease to obey;
they would not fear a punishment that was so slow and so distant.

Thus, Charlemagne had scarcely founded his empire before it had
to be divided, either because the governors of the provinces did not
obey, or because they would obey better if the empire were divided into
several kingdoms.

After Alexander’s death, his empire was divided. How could those
important men of Greece and Macedonia, who were once free or were
at least leaders of conquering peoples then so scattered across that vast
conquest, how could they have obeyed others?

After Attila’s death, his empire was dissolved; the many kings who
were no longer constrained could not take up their chains again.

In these cases, the quick establishment of unlimited power is the
remedy which can prevent dissolution: a new misfortune after that of
expansion!

Rivers run together into the sea; monarchies are lost in despotism.

CHAPTER 18

That the Spanish monarchy was a particular case

Let Spain not be cited as an example; rather, it proves what I say. In
order to hold America, it did what despotism itself does not do; it
destroyed the inhabitants. In order to preserve its colony Spain had to
keep it dependent even for its subsistence.

Spain attempted despotism in the Low Countries, and, as soon as it
had abandoned this attempt, it became more encumbered. On the one
hand, the Walloons would not be governed by the Spaniards, and, on
the other, the Spanish soldiers refused to obey the Walloon officers . 29

29 See [Jean] Le Clerc, Histoiredes Provinces- Unies des Pays-Bas [e.g. 1,81; 1737-1738 edn].

125

Part i

Spain maintained itself in Italy only by enriching Italy and ruining
itself, for those who wanted to be rid of the king of Spain were
nevertheless not in a humor to relinquish his money.

chapter 19

Distinctive properties of despotic government

A large empire presupposes a despotic authority in the one who
governs. Promptness of resolutions must make up for the distance of
the places to which they are sent; fear must prevent negligence in the
distant governor or magistrate; the law must be in a single person; and it
must change constantly, like accidents, which always increase in
proportion to the size of the state.

CHAPTER 20

Consequence of the preceding chapters

If the natural property of small states is to be governed as republics, that
of medium-sized ones, to be subject to a monarch, and that of large
empires to be dominated by a despot, it follows that, in order to
preserve the principles of the established government, the state must
be maintained at the size it already has and that it will change its spirit to
the degree to which its boundaries are narrowed or extended.

CHAPTER 21

On the Chinese empire

Before completing this book, I shall answer an objection that may be
raised about all 1 have said to this point.

Our missionaries speak of the vast empire of China as of an
admirable government, in whose principle intermingle fear, honor, and

126

Corruption of the principles of the governments

virtue. I would therefore have made an empty distinction in establish-
ing the principles of the three governments.

I do not know how one can speak of honor among peoples who can be
made to do nothing without beatings . 30

Moreover, our men of commerce, far from giving us an idea of the
same kind of virtue of which our missionaries speak, can rather be
consulted about the banditry of the mandarins . 31 I also call to witness
the great man, Lord Anson.

Besides, Father Parennin’s letters on the proceeding that the
emperor caused to be brought against the neophyte princes of the
blood 32 who had displeased him show us a tyrannical plan consistently
followed and affronts to human nature done as a matter of rule, that is,
in cold blood.

We also have letters from M. de Mairan and the same Father
Parennin concerning the government of China. After some very
sensible questions and answers, the aura of the marvelous vanishes.

Could it not be that the missionaries were deceived by an appearance
of order, that they were struck by that continuous exercise of the will of
one alone by which they themselves are governed and which they so like
to find in the courts of the kings of India? For, as they go there only to
make great changes, it is easier for them to convince princes that they
can do everything than to persuade the peoples that they can suffer
everything . 33

Finally, there is often something true even in errors. Particular and
perhaps unique circumstances may make it so that the Chinese
government is not as corrupt as it should be. In this country causes
drawn mostly from the physical aspect, climate, have been able to force
the moral causes and, in a way, to perform prodigies.

The climate of China is such that it prodigiously favors the
reproduction of mankind. Women there have such great fertility that

30 The stick governs China, says Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de ['Empire de la
Chine, “Des prisons”; 2, 156-157 H; 2, 132-133 P; 2, 226 L).

31 See, among others, the relation of Lange [Recueil de voyages au Nord, “Journal du Sieur
Lange continuant ses negotiations a la cour de la Chine, 1721-1722”; vol. 8; 1727 edn].

32 Of the family of Sourniama, Letlres edifiantes el curieuses, 1 8 [Lettre du P. Parennin, Pekin,
July 20, 1726; 18, 33-122; Pekin, August 24, 1726; t8, 248-311; 1728 edn].

33 In Father (Jean Baptiste] du Halde, see how the missionaries used the authority of Kang-
hi to silence the mandarins who always said that by the laws of the country a foreign form of
worship could not be established in the empire. (Jean Baptiste du Halde, Description de
I’Empire de la Chine, “De l’etablissement et du progres de la religion chretienne,” 3, 1 26-
136 H; 3, 104-111 P.]

127

Part i

nothing like it is seen elsewhere on earth. The cruellest tyranny cannot
check the progress of propagation. The prince cannot say, with the
Pharaoh, Let us oppress them wisely. He would be reduced, rather, to
formulating Nero’s wish that mankind should have only one head.
Despite tyranny, China, because of its climate, will always populate
itself and will triumph over tyranny.

China, like all countries where rice is grown , 34 is subject to frequent
famines. When the people are starving, they scatter to seek something
to eat. Everywhere bands of three, four, or five robbers form: most are
immediately wiped out; others grow and are also wiped out. But, in
such a great number of distant provinces, a group may meet with
success. It maintains itself, grows stronger, forms itself into an army,
goes straight to the capital, and its leader comes to the throne.

The nature of the thing is such that bad government there is
immediately punished. Disorder is born suddenly when this prodigious
number of people lacks subsistence. What makes it so hard to recover
from abuses in other countries is that the effects are not felt; the prince
is not alerted as promptly and strikingly as in China.

He will not feel, as our princes do, that if he governs badly, he will be
less happy in the next life, less powerful and less rich in this one; he will
know that, if his government is not good, he will lose his empire and his
life.

As the Chinese people become ever more numerous despite expos-
ing their children , 35 they must work tirelessly to make the lands
produce enough to feed themselves; this demands great attention on
the part of the government. It is in its interest for everyone at every
moment to be able to work without fear of being frustrated for his pains.
This should be less a civil government than a domestic government.

This is what has produced the rules that are so much discussed.
Some have wanted to have laws reign along with despotism, but
whatever is joined to despotism no longer has force. This despotism,
beset by its misfortunes, has wanted in vain to curb itself; it arms itself
with its chains and becomes yet more terrible.

Therefore, China is a despotic state whose principle is fear. In the
first dynasties, when the empire was not so extensive, perhaps the
government deviated a little from that spirit. But that is not so today.

34 See bk. 23, chap. 14, below.

35 See the memoir of one Tsongtu, Leltres edifiantes el curieuses, 21 “Expedients pour faire
defricherles terres incultes” [22.210-223; 1 736 edn}.

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Part 2

BOOK 9

On the laws in their relation with
defensive force

CHAPTER I

Hou> republics provide for their security

If a republic is small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it is large, it is
destroyed by an internal vice.

This dual drawback taints democracies and aristocracies equally,
whether they are good or whether they are bad. The ill is in the thing
itself; there is no form that can remedy it.

Thus, it is very likely that ultimately men would have been obliged to
live forever under the government of one alone if they had not devised a
kind of constitution that has all the internal advantages of republican
government and the external force of monarchy. I speak of the federal
republic.

This form of government is an agreement by which many political
bodies consent to become citizens of the larger state that they want to
form. It is a society of societies that make a new one, which can be
enlarged by new associates that unite with it.

Such associations made Greece flourish for so long. By using them,
the Romans attacked the universe, and with their use alone, the
universe defended itself from the Romans; and when Rome had
reached its greatest height, the barbarians were able to resist it by
associations made beyond the Danube and the Rhine, associations
made from fright.

Because of them, Holland , 1 Germany, and the Swiss leagues are
regarded in Europe as eternal republics.

Associations of towns were more necessary formerly than they are
today. A city without power risked greater perils. Conquest made it lose

'it is formed of about fifty republics, all of them different from one another. [Francois
Michel] )am<;on, Etat present de la Republique des Provinces -Unies [x, 76; 1729 edn].

Part 2

not only executive and legislative power, as today, but also all property
among men . 2

This sort of republic, able to resist external force, can be maintained
at its size without internal corruption: the form of this society curbs
every drawback.

One who might want to usurp could scarcely have equal credit in all
the confederated states. If he became too strong in one state, he would
alarm all the others; if he subjugated a part, the part still free could
resist him with forces independent of those he had usurped and
overwhelm him before he had completely established himself.

If a sedition occurs in one of the members of the confederation, the
others can pacify it. If some abuses are introduced somewhere, they are
corrected by the healthy parts. This state can perish in one place
without perishing in another; the confederation can be dissolved and
the confederates remain sovereign.

Composed of small republics, it enjoys the goodness of the internal
government of each one; and, with regard to the exterior, it has, by the
force of the association, all the advantages of large monarchies.

2 Civil liberty, goods, women, children, temples, and even sepulchers.

CHAPTER 2

That the federal constitution should he composed of states of
the same nature , above all of republican states

The Canaanites were destroyed because they were small monarchies
that had not confederated and did not have a common defense. This is
because it is not in the nature of small monarchies to confederate.

The federal republic of Germany is composed of free towns and
small states subject to princes. Experience shows that it is more
imperfect than the federal republics of Holland and Switzerland.

The spirit of monarchy is war and expansion; the spirit of republics is
peace and moderation. The only way these two sorts of governments
can continue to exist together in one federal republic is by force.

Thus we see in Roman history that when the Veientes chose a king,
all the small republics of Tuscany abandoned them. In Greece all

* 3 *

The laws and defensive force

was lost when the Macedonian kings gained a place among the
Amphictiones.

The federal republic of Germany, composed of princes and free
towns, continues to exist because it has a leader who is, in a way, the
magistrate of the union and, in a way, the monarch.

CHAPTER 3

Other things required in the federal republic

In the republic of Holland, one province cannot make an alliance
without the consent of the others. This law is good and even necessary
in the federal republic. It is missing from the German constitution,
where it would curb the misfortunes that can come to all the members
from the imprudence, ambition, or avarice of one alone. A republic
united in a political confederation has given itself entirely and has
nothing more to give.

It is unlikely that the states that associate will be of the same size and
have equal power. The republic of the Lycians 3 was an association of
twenty-three towns; the large ones had three votes in the common
council; the medium-sized ones, two; the small ones, one. The
republic of Holland is composed of seven provinces, large and small,
each having one vote.

The towns of Lycia 4 paid the costs in proportion to their votes. The
provinces of Holland cannot follow this proportion; they must follow
that of their power.

In Lycia , 5 the judges and magistrates of the towns were elected by
the common council in the proportion that we have said. In the republic
of Holland, they are not elected by the common council, and each town
names its magistrates. If one had to propose a model of a fine federal
republic, I would choose the republic of Lycia.

3 Strabo [Geographical bk. 14 [14.3.3].

4 Ibid. [Strabo, Geographica , 14.3.3].

5 Strabo [Geographica], bk. 14 [14.3.3].

133

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CHAPTER 4

How despotic states provide for their security

Just as republics unite to provide for their security, despotic states
separate and hold themselves, so to speak, apart. They sacrifice a part
of the country, ravage the frontiers, and leave them deserted; the main
part of the empire becomes inaccessible.

It is accepted in geometry that the larger a body, the smaller,
relatively, its circumference. Therefore, this practice of laying waste
the frontiers is more tolerable in large states than in medium-sized
ones.

This state does to itself all the ill that could be done by a cruel enemy,
but an enemy that could not be checked.

The despotic state preserves itself by another kind of separation, by
which the distant provinces are put in the hands of a feudatory prince.
The Moguls, the Persians, and the emperors of China have their
feudatory princes; and the Turks are very well off for having put the
Tartars, the Moldavians, the Walachians, and formerly the Tran-
sylvanians between their enemies and themselves.

CHAPTER 5

How monarchy provides for its security

Monarchy does not destroy itself as does the despotic state; but a state
of medium size may quickly be invaded. Therefore, it has strongholds
that protect its frontiers and armies that defend these strongholds.
There one disputes artfully, courageously, and opinionatedly over the
smallest area. Despotic states make invasions; only monarchies make
war.

Strongholds belong to monarchies; despotic states are afraid to have
them. They dare not entrust them to anyone; for no one there loves the
state or the prince.

i34

The laws and defensive force

chapter 6

On the defensive force of states in general

For a state to be at its full force, its size must be such that there is a
relation between the speed with which one can execute an undertaking
against it and its promptness in rendering this ineffective. As the one
who attacks can suddenly appear everywhere, the one who defends
must also be able to appear everywhere; consequently, the state must
be of a medium extent so as to be proportionate to the degree of speed
nature has given men to move from one place to another.

France and Spain are precisely the requisite size. Their forces
communicate so well that they go immediately where they are wanted;
the armies join together and go rapidly from one frontier to the other;
and one fears none of the things that need a certain amount of time for
their execution.

It is remarkably fortunate for France that its capital is closer to the
different frontiers in proportion to their greater weakness; and the
prince here sees each part of his country the better as it is the more
exposed.

But when a vast state, such as Persia, is attacked, several months
must pass before the dispersed troops can assemble, and there can be
no forced march for this length of time, as there can be for two weeks. If
the army on the frontier is beaten, it will surely disperse because its
places of retreat are not nearby; the victorious army, finding no
resistance, advances by long daily marches, appears at the capital, and
besieges it, when the governors of the provinces have just been alerted
to send help. Those who judge the revolution at hand hasten it by not
obeying. For people, faithful only because punishment is at hand, are
no longer faithful when it is distant; they work for their own particular
interests. The empire dissolves, the capital is taken, and the conqueror
disputes the provinces with the governors.

The true power of a prince consists not so much in the ease he has in
conquering as in the difficulty there is in attacking him, and, if I dare
put it this way, in the immutability of his condition. But the expansion
of states makes them expose new sides from which they can be taken.

Thus, just as monarchs should be wise in increasing their power,
they should be no less prudent in limiting it. While they put an end to

i35

Part 2

the drawbacks of being small, they must always have an eye out for the
drawbacks of being large.

CHAPTER 7

Reflections

The enemies of a great prince who has long reigned have accused him a
thousand times, more from fears than from reasons, I believe, of having
formed and pursued the project of universal monarchy." If he had
succeeded in it nothing would have been more fatal to Europe, to his
first subjects, to himself, and to his family. Heaven, which knows the
true advantages, has better served him by defeats than it would have by
victories. Instead of making him the only king in Europe, it has favored
him more by- making him the most powerful of all.

The people of his nation, who, in foreign countries, are affected only
by that which they have left behind, who, on leaving their home, regard
glory as the sovereign good, and in distant countries, as an obstacle to
their re^rn, who antagonize even by their good qualities because they
seem to join scorn to them, who can bear wounds, perils, or exhaustion,
but not the loss of their pleasures, who love nothing so much as their
gaiety and are consoled for the loss of a battle by singing of their
general, would never have completed such an undertaking, which
cannot fail in one country without failing in all others, or fail for a
moment without failing forever.

“This prince was Louis XIV.

chapter8

A case where the defensive force of a state is inferior to its
offensive force

The comment of Sir De Coucy to King Charles V was that “the
English are never so weak or so easy to defeat as at home.” This is what
was said of the Romans; this is what the Carthaginians experienced; it
is what will happen to any power that has sent its armies far away in

136

The laws and defensive force

order to bring together by force of discipline and of military power
those who are divided among themselves by political or civil interests.
The state is weak because of the ill that remains and has been further
weakened by the remedy.

The maxim of Sir De Coucy is an exception to the general rule by
which one is never to undertake distant wars. And this exception
indeed proves the rule, because it applies only to those who have
themselves broken the rule.

chapter 9

On the relative force of states

All size, all force, all power is relative. One must take care that in
seeking to increase real size, one does not diminish relative size.

Toward the middle of the reign of Louis XIV, France was at the
highest point of its relative size. Germany did not yet have the great
monarchs it has since had. Italy was in the same situation. Scotland and
England had not formed a monarchy. Aragon had not formed one with
Castile; and the separate parts of Spain were weakened by this and
weakened Spain. Muscovy was as yet no better known in Europe than
was the Crimea.

CHAPTER 10

On the weakness of neighboring states

When a neighboring state is in its decline, one should take care not to
hasten its ruin, because this is the most fortunate situation possible;
there is nothing more suitable for a prince than to be close to another
who receives in his stead all the blows and outrages of fortune. By
conquering such a state, one rarely increases as much in real power as
one loses in relative power.

i37

BOOK 10

On laws in their relation with
offensive force

CHAPTER I

On offensive force

Offensive force is regulated by the right of nations, which is the political
law of the nations considered in their relation with each other.

CHAPTER 2

On war

The life of states is like that of men. Men have the right to kill in the
case of natural defense; states have the right to wage war for their own
preservation.

In the case of natural defense, I have the right to kill, because my life
is mine, as the life of the one who attacks me is his; likewise a state
wages war because its preservation is just, as is any other preservation.

Among citizens, the right to natural defense does not carry with it a
necessity to attack. Instead of attacking they have the recourse of the
tribunals. Therefore, they can exercise that right of defense only in
cases that occur so suddenly that one would be lost if one waited for the
aid of the laws. But among societies, the right of natural defense
sometimes carries with it a necessity to attack, when one people sees
that a longer peace would put another people in a position to destroy it
and that an attack at this moment is the only way to prevent such
destruction.

Hence small societies more frequently have the right to wage wars
than large ones, because they are more frequently in a position to fear
being destroyed.

The laws and offensive force

Therefore, the right of war derives from necessity and from a strict
justice. If those who direct the conscience or the councils of princes do
not hold to these, all is lost; and, when that right is based on arbitrary
principles of glory, of propriety, of utility, tides of blood will inundate
the earth.

Above all, let one not speak of the prince’s glory; his glory is his
arrogance; it is a passion and not a legitimate right.

It is true that his reputation for power could increase the forces of his
state, but his reputation for justice would increase them in any case.

CHAPTER 3

On the right of conquest

From the right of war derives that of conquest, which is its conse-
quence; therefore, it should follow the spirit of the former.

When a people is conquered, the right of the conqueror follows four
sorts of laws: the law of nature, which makes everything tend toward the
preservation of species; the law of natural enlightenment, 0 which wants
us to do to others what we would want to have done to us; the law that
forms political societies, which are such that nature has not limited
their duration; lastly, the law drawn from the thing itself. Conquest is
an acquisition; the spirit of acquisition carries with it the spirit of
preservation and use, and not that of destruction.

One state that has conquered another treats it in one of these four
ways: the state continues to govern its conquest according to its own
laws and takes for itself only the exercise of the political and civil
government; or it gives its conquest a new political and civil govern-
ment; or it destroys the society and scatters it into others; or, finally, it
exterminates all the citizens.

The first way conforms to the right of nations we follow at present;
the fourth is more in conformity with the right of nations among the
Romans; on this point, I leave others to judge how much better we have
become. Here homage must be paid to our modern times, to con-
temporary reasoning, to the religion of the present day, to our philo-
sophy, and to our mores.

“Montesquieu uses lumieres, which we translate as “enlightenment”; it also implies
insight or illumination.

139

Part 2

When the authors of our public right, for whom ancient histories
provided the foundation, have no longer followed cases strictly, they
have fallen into great errors. They have moved toward the arbitrary;
they have assumed among conquerors a right, I do not know which one,
of killing; this has made them draw consequences as terrible as this
principle and establish maxims that the conquerors themselves, when
they had the slightest sense, never adopted. It is clear that, once the
conquest is made, the conqueror no longer has the right to kill, because
it is no longer for him a case of natural defense and of his own
preservation.

What has made them think in this way is that they have believed the
conqueror had the right to destroy the society; thus they have con-
cluded that he had the right to destroy the men composing it, which is a
consequence wrongly drawn from a wrong principle. For, from the
annihilation of the society, it would not follow that the men forming that
society should also be annihilated. The society is the union of men and
not the men themselves; the citizen may perish and the man remain.

From the right to kill during conquest, political men have drawn the
right to reduce to servitude, but the consequence is as ill founded as the
principle.

One has the right to reduce a people to servitude only when it is
necessary for the preservation of a conquest. The purpose of conquest
is preservation; servitude is never the purpose of conquest, but it is
sometimes a necessary means for achieving preservation.

In this case, it is against the nature of the thing for this servitude to be
eternal. It must be possible for the enslaved people to become subjects.
Slavery is accidental to conquest. When, after a certain length of time,
all the parts of the conquering state are bound to those of the
conquered state by customs, marriage, laws, associations, and a certain
conformity of spirit, servitude should cease. For the rights of the
conqueror are founded only on the fact that these things do not exist
and that there is a distance between the two nations, such that the one
cannot trust the other.

Thus, the conqueror who reduces a people to servitude should
always reserve for himself means (and these means are innumerable)
for allowing them to leave it.

I am not saying vague things here. Our fathers who conquered the
Roman Empire acted in this way. They softened the laws that they
made in the heat, impetuosity, and arrogance of victory; their laws had

140

The laws and offensive force

been hard, they made them impartial. The Burgundians, the Goths,
and the Lombards wanted the Romans to continue to be the
vanquished people; the laws of Euric, of Gundobad, and of Rotharis
made the barbarian and the Roman fellow citizens. u

To subdue the Saxons, Charlemagne deprived them of their
freeborn status and of the ownership of goods. Louis the Pious freed
them ; 2 he did nothing better during his reign. Time and servitude had
softened their mores; they were forever faithful to him.

'See the law codes of the barbarians, and book 28 below.

2 See the anonymous author [“Astronomous”) or the life of Louis the Pious in the
Duchesne collection, vol. 2, p. 296 [Vila Hludowici Imperaioris, MGH, SS. 2; chap. 24,
anno 814).

'’See 28.5 for an elaboration of the personal law of the barbarians.

CHAPTER 4

Some advantages for the conquered peoples

Instead of drawing such fatal consequences from the right of conquest,
political men would have done better to speak of the advantages this
right can sometimes confer on a vanquished people. They would have
been more sensitive to these advantages if our right of nations were
followed exactly and if it were established around the earth.

Ordinarily states that are conquered do not have the force they had at
their institution: corruption has entered them; their laws have ceased to
be executed; the government has become an oppressor. Who can doubt
that there would be gain for such a state and that it would draw other
advantages from the conquest itself, if the conquest were not destruc-
tive? What would the government lose by being recast, if it had reached
the point of being unable to reform itself? A conqueror who comes to a
people among whom the rich, by a thousand ruses and a thousand
tricks, have imperceptibly practiced an infinite number of usurpations;
where the unfortunate man who trembles as he watches what he
believed to be abuses become laws is oppressed and believes himself
wrong to feel so; a conqueror, I say, can change the course of
everything, and muffled tyranny is the first thing which is liable to
violence.

Part 2

For example, one has seen states whose oppression by tax-collectors
was relieved by the conqueror, who had neither the engagements nor
the needs of the legitimate prince. Abuses were corrected even without
the conqueror’s correcting them.

The frugality of the conquering nation has sometimes put it in a
position to leave the vanquished people the necessities that had been
taken from them under the legitimate prince.

A conquest can destroy harmful prejudices, and, if I dare speak in
this way, can put a nation under a better presiding genius.

What good could the Spanish not have done the Mexicans? They
had a gentle religion to give them; they brought them a raging
superstition. They could have set the slaves free, and they made
freemen slaves. They could have made clear to them that human
sacrifice was an abuse; instead they exterminated them. I would never
finish if I wanted to tell all the good things they did not do, and all the
evil ones they did.

It is for the conqueror to make amends for part of the evils he has
done. I define the right of conquest thus: a necessary, legitimate, and
unfortunate right, which always leaves an immense debt to be dis-
charged if human nature is to be repaid.

CHAPTER 5

Gelon, King of Syracuse

The finest peace treaty mentioned in history is, I believe, the one Gelon
made with the Carthaginians. He wanted them to abolish the custom of
sacrificing their children . 3 Remarkable thing! After defeating three
hundred thousand Carthaginians, he exacted a condition useful only to
them, or rather, he stipulated one for mankind.

The Bactrians had their elders eaten by large dogs; Alexander
forbade them to do this , 4 and this was a triumph he gained over
superstition.

3 See the collection by [Jean] Barbeyrac [Histoiredes anciens traitez ], art. 1 1 2 [art. 113; 1739
edn].

4 Strabo [ Geographica ], bk. 2 [11.11.3].

142

The laws and offensive force

chapter6

On a republic that conquers

It is against the nature of the thing for one confederated state under a
federal constitution to conquer another, as we have seen among the
Swiss in our own time . 5 In mixed federal republics, with an association
of small republics and small monarchies, such conquest is less
shocking.

It is also against the nature of the thing for a democratic republic to
conquer towns that could not enter the sphere of the democracy. As the
Romans had established from the beginning, the conquered people
must be able to enjoy the privileges of sovereignty. The limit to
conquest should be the number of citizens fixed for the democracy.

If a democracy conquers a people in order to govern it as a subject, it
will expose its own liberty, because it will entrust too much power to the
magistrates whom it sends out to the conquered state.

What danger would not the republic of Carthage have run if
Hannibal had taken Rome? Having caused so many revolutions in his
own town after his defeat, what might he not have done there after that
victory ? 6

Hanno could never have persuaded the senate not to send aid to
Hannibal if he had let only his jealousy speak. That senate, which
Aristotle tells us was very wise (something the prosperity of that
republic proves very well)/ could reach a decision only for sensible
reasons. One would have had to be dull-witted not to see that an army
three hundred leagues away had had necessary losses that had to be
repaired.

Hanno’s party wanted Hannibal to surrender to the Romans . 7 At
that time, one could not have feared the Romans; therefore, one feared
Hannibal.

Hannibal’s successes, they say, could not be believed; but how could
they be doubted? Were the Carthaginians, scattered around the earth,

5 Of Tockenburg.

6 He was at the head of a faction.

7 Hanno wanted to surrender Hannibal to the Romans, as Cato wanted Caesar to be
surrendered to the Gauls.

r Aristotle, Politics 1 272b24~4 i .

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Part 2

unaware of what was happening in Italy? It was because they were
aware of it that they did not want to send help to Hannibal.

Hanno became firmer after Trebia, after Trasimene, after Cannae;
it is not their incredulity that grows, it is their fear.

CHAPTER 7

Continuation of the same subject

There is still another drawback to conquests made by democracies.
Their kind of government is always odious to subject states. It is
monarchical only by a fiction; but, in truth, it is harsher than monarchy,
as the experience of all times and all countries has shown.

The conquered peoples are in a sad state; they enjoy the advantages
neither of the republic nor of the monarchy.

What I have said of the popular state can be applied to aristocracy.

chapter8

Continuation of the same subject

Thus, when a republic holds a people dependent, it must seek to make
amends for the drawbacks that arise from the nature of the thing by
giving this people a good political right and good civil laws.

An Italian republic held certain islanders obedient to it, but its
political and civil right in their regard was faulty. One recalls the act of
amnesty 8 that stipulated that they would no longer be condemned to
corporal penalties on the privy knowledge of the governor f Peoples have
often asked for privileges; here it is the sovereign who grants what is the
right of all nations.

8 Of October 18, 1738, printed at Genoa by Franchelli. “We forbid our Governor-general
in this said Island [Corsica] to condemn to grievous punishment any person based solely
on his own privy information [ex informata conscientia]. He will certainly be able to arrest
and imprison such persons who are suspect, provided that he render to us a speedy
account” [It.], art. 6. [This reference has not been verified.]

d The “corporal penalties” are peines afflictives, meaning imprisonment or death.

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The lam and offensive force

chapter 9

On a monarchy that conquers its neighbors

If a monarchy can have an influence long before its expansion weakens
it, it will become formidable; and its force wil last as long as neighbor-
ing monarchies continue to press it.

Therefore it should conquer only up to the limits natural to its
government. Prudence wants it to check itself as soon as it exceeds
these limits.

In this sort of conquest, things must be left as they were found: the
same tribunals, the same laws, the same customs, the same privileges.
Nothing should be changed but the army and the sovereign’s name.

When the monarchy has extended its limits by the conquest of a few
neighbouring provinces, it must treat them very gently.

In a monarchy that has worked long for conquest, the provinces of its
first domain will ordinarily be badly trampled. They have to suffer both
the new abuses and the old ones, and often a vast capital that engulfs
everything has decreased their population. Now if, after the conquest
of the area around this domain, the vanquished peoples were treated as
were the first subjects, the state would be lost; what the conquered
provinces would send in tribute to the capital would no longer return to
them; the frontiers would be ruined, and consequently weaker; the
peoples would be badly affected by this; the sustenance of armies that
were to remain there and have influence would be more precarious.

Such is the necessary state of a conquering monarchy: frightful
luxury in the capital, poverty in the provinces at some distance from it,
abundance at the farthest points. It is as it is with our planet: fire is in
the center, greenery on the surface, and between them an arid, cold,
and sterile land.

CHAPTER 10

On a monarchy that conquers another monarchy

Sometimes one monarchy conquers another. The smaller the latter is,
the better it will be contained by strongholds; the larger, the better
preserved by colonies.

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CHAPTER II

On the mores of the vanquished people

In these conquests, it is not enough to leave the vanquished nation its
laws; it is perhaps more necessary to leave it its mores, because a people
always knows, loves, and defends its mores better than its laws.

The French were driven out of Italy nine times because, say the
historians , 9 they were insolent to women and girls. It is too much for a
nation to have to suffer not only the conqueror’s pride but also his
incontinence; not only both these but also his indiscretion, probably the
more trying because it multiplies outrages to infinity.

9 See [Samuel] Pufendorf, Introduction a Vhhtoire generate et politique de t’univers [see, for
example, p. 358; 1700 Latin edn; bk. t, chap. 4; 1, 343; 1743 Fr. edn].

CHAPTER 12

On a law of Cyrus

I do not consider good the law that Cyrus made: that the Lydians could
exercise none but vile or infamous professions. One attends to the most
urgent; one thinks of rebellions and not invasions. But invasions will
soon come; the two peoples unite; they corrupt each other. I should
prefer that the laws maintained the roughness of the victorious people
than that they kept up the softness of the vanquished people.

Aristodemus, tyrant of Cumae , 10 sought to weaken the courage of
the youth. He wanted the boys to let their hair grow long like a girl’s,
dressing it with flowers, and to wear variously colored robes down to
their heels; to have women bring them their parasols, perfumes, and
fans when they went to their dancing masters and their music masters;
in the bath women gave them their combs and mirrors. This education
lasted until the age of twenty. This is suitable only for a petty tyrant,
who risks his sovereignty in order to defend his life.

10 Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.), bk. 7 [7.9.3-51.

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The laws and offensive force

CHAPTER 13

Charles XII

This prince, who used only his own forces, brought on his fall by
forming designs that could be executed only by a long war, one which
his kingdom could not support.

It was not a state in its decline that he attempted to overthrow, but a
rising empire. The war this prince waged against the Muscovites
served them as a school. After each defeat, they came closer to victory;
and, while losing abroad, they learned to defend themselves at home.

Charles believed himself master of the world in the uninhabited
regions of Poland where he roamed and in which Sweden was spread
out, as it were, while his principal enemy strengthened itself against
him, surrounded him, established itself on the Baltic Sea, and
destroyed or captured Livonia.

Sweden was like a river whose waters were cut off at the source while
its course was being deflected.

It was not Poltava that ruined Charles; if he had not been destroyed
at that place, he would have been destroyed at another. Accidents of
fortune are easily rectified; one cannot avert events that continuously
arise from the nature of things/

But neither nature nor fortune was ever as strong against him as he
himself.

He was not ruled by the actual arrangement of things, but rather by a
certain model he had chosen; even this he followed badly. He was not
Alexander but he would have been Alexander’s best soldier.

Alexander’s project succeeded only because it was sensible. The
unfavorable results of the Persians’ invasions of Greece, the conquests
of Agesilaus and the retreat of the Ten Thousand had made known just
how superior the Greek manner of doing battle and their sort of
weapons were; and it was well known that the Persians were too great to
correct themselves.

They could no longer weaken Greece by dividing it; it was then
united under a leader for whom there was no better means of hiding its

'In 1 757 the beginning of this clause was changed from mats comment purer to on ne pent
pas parer. Although in the Masson edition the punctuation has not been changed from
a question-mark to a period, we have changed it in the translation.

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servitude from it than to dazzle it by the destruction of its eternal
enemies and by the expectation of conquering Asia.

As the empire was cultivated by a nation of the most industrious
people in the world who plowed their lands on account of religious
principle, a nation fertile and abundant in all things, it was very easy for
an enemy to subsist there.

By the arrogance of these kings, always humbled in vain by their
defeats, one might judge that they would hasten their downfall by
always giving batde and that flattery would never allow them to doubt of
their greatness.

And not only was the project wise, but it was wisely executed.
Alexander, in the rapidity of his actions, even in the heat of his passions,
was led by a vein of reason, if I dare use the term, and those who have
wanted to make a romance of his story, those whose spirit was more
spoiled than his, have been unable to hide it from us. Let us speak about
him at length.

chapter 14

Alexander

He left Greece only after securing Macedonia from the neighboring
barbarian peoples and completely oppressing the Greeks; he used this
oppression only for the execution of his enterprise; he rendered the
Lacedaemonians’ jealousy powerless; he attacked the maritime prov-
inces; he made his army follow the seashore in order not to be
separated from his fleet; he used discipline remarkably well against
numbers; he did not lack provisions; and if it is true that victory gave
him everything, he also did everything in order to gain victory.

In the beginning of his enterprise, that is, at a time when a defeat
could have set him back, he left little to chance; when fortune set him
above events, temerity was sometimes one of his means. When he
marches against the Triballians and Illyrians before his departure, you
see a war like the one Caesar later waged in Gaul . 11 On his way to
Greece , 12 it is almost in spite of himself that he captures and destroys

n See Arrian, Anabasis, bk. 1 [1.1.4-1.4.8].
,2 Ibid. [Arrian, Anabasis 1.7-8.]

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The lam and offensive force

Thebes; camped near their city, he waits until the Thebans want to
make peace; they themselves hasten their ruin. When it is a question of
battling the naval forces of the Persians , 13 Parmenion is the more
audacious, but Alexander is the wiser. By his industry he maneuvered
the Persians away from the seashore and reduced them to abandoning
their navy, which was superior. In principle, Tyre was attached to the
Persians, who could not do without its commerce and its navy;
Alexander destroyed it. He took Egypt, which Darius had left stripped
of troops while he was collecting innumerable armies in another
universe.

Alexander owed his mastery of the Greek colonies to the crossing of
the Granicus; the battle of Issus gave him Tyre and Egypt; the battle of
Arbela gave him the whole earth.

After the battle of Issus, he lets Darius flee and concerns himself
only with consolidating and ruling his conquests; after the battle of
Arbela, he follows Darius so closely 14 that he leaves him no retreat in
his empire. Darius enters his towns and provinces only to leave again;
Alexander’s marches are so rapid that you believe that empire of the
universe is the prize for running, as in the Greek games, rather than the
prize for victory.

It is thus that he made his conquests; let us see how he preserved
them.

He resisted those who wanted him to treat 15 the Greeks as masters
and the Persians as slaves; he thought only of uniting the two nations
and wiping out the distinctions between the conquerors and the
vanquished: after the conquest, he abandoned all the prejudices that
had served him in making it; he assumed the mores of the Persians in
order not to distress the Persians by making them assume the mores of
the Greeks; this is why he showed so much respect for the wife and the
mother of Darius and why he was so continent. Who is this conqueror
who is mourned by all the peoples he subjected? Who is this usurper
whose death moved to tears the family he had removed from the
throne? This aspect of his life, historians tell us, can be claimed by no
other conqueror.

Nothing strengthens a conquest more than unions by marriage

13 Ibid. [Arrian, Anabasis 1.18.6-9.]

14 Ibid. [Arrian, Anabasis], bk. 3 [3. 19-21].

15 This was Aristotle’s counsel. Plutarch, Moralia, DeAlexandri Magni fortuna aut virtute [1.6;
329b-d],

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between two peoples. Alexander took wives from the nation he had
vanquished; he wanted the men of his court 16 to do likewise; the rest of
the Macedonians followed his example. The Franks and the
Burgundians 17 allowed these marriages; in Spain the Visigoths for-
bade 18 them and later permitted them; the Lombards not only permit-
ted them but even fostered them ; 19 when the Romans wanted to
weaken Macedonia, they established there that no unions by marriage
could be made between the peoples of one province and another.

Alexander, who sought to unite the two peoples, thought of making a
large number of Greek colonies in Persia; he built an infinite number of
towns and cemented all the parts of this new empire so well that after
his death, in the trouble and confusion of the most horrible civil wars,
after the Greeks had annihilated themselves, so to speak, none of the
Persian provinces rebelled.

In order not to drain Greece and Macedonia, he sent a colony of
Jews to Alexandria ; 20 it was unimportant to him what mores these
peoples had, provided they were faithful to him.

He left to the vanquished peoples not only their mores but also their
civil laws and often even the kings and governors he had found there.
He put the Macedonians 21 at the head of the troops and people from
the incraded country at the head of the government, preferring to run
the risk of the unfaithfulness of some individuals (which occured a few
times) to a general rebellion. He respected the old traditions and
everything that recorded the glory or the vanity of these peoples. The
kings of Persia had destroyed the temples of the Greeks, Babylonians,
and Egyptians; he rebuilt them ; 22 there were few nations at whose altars
he did not sacrifice; it seemed he had conquered only to be the
monarch of each nation and the first citizen of each town. The Romans
conquered all in order to destroy all; he wanted to conquer all in order
to preserve all, and in every country he entered, his first ideas, his first
designs, were always to do something to increase its prosperity and

16 See Arrian, Anabasis, bk. 7 [7. 4.4-8].

17 See th c Leges Burgundionum, tit. 12, art. 5 (12.5].

^SetXhtLexWisigothorum, bk. 3, tit. 5, para. 1 [3.1.1], It abrogates the earlier law, which, it
says, had more regard to the difference between nations than to that between conditions.
19 See the Leges Langobardorum, bk. 2, tit. 7, paras, t {Liut. 127] and 2 [Loth. 14 (pap)].

20 The kings of Syria, abandoning the plan of the empire’s founders, wanted to oblige the
Jews to take on the mores of the Greeks, which jolted their state terribly.

21 See Arrian, Anabasis, bk. 3 and elsewhere [for example, 3.5, 16] and others.

22 Ibid. [Arrian, Anabasis, 3.16.4-5.]

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The laws and offensive force

power. He found the first ways for doing this in the greatness of his
genius; the second, in his own frugality and his own economy ; 23 the
third, in his immense prodigality for great things. His hand was closed
for private expenditures; it opened for public expenditures. Was it a
question of regulating his household? He was a Macedonian. Was it a
question of paying soldiers’ debts, of letting the Greeks share in his
conquest, of making the fortune of each man in his army? He was
Alexander.

He did two things that were bad: he burned Persepolis and killed
Clitus. He made them famous by his repentance, so that one forgot his
criminal actions and remembered his respect for virtue, so that these
actions were considered misfortunes rather than things proper to him,
so that posterity finds the beauty of his soul at virtually the same time as
his ravings and his weaknesses, so that one had to be sorry for him and it
was no longer possible to hate him.

I shall compare him to Caesar: when Caesar wanted to imitate the
kings of Asia, he drove the Romans to despair over a thing of pure
ostentation; when Alexander wanted to imitate the kings of Asia, he did
a thing that entered into the plan of his conquest.

23 See Arrian, Anabasis, bk. 7 [7.9.9.]

CHAPTER 15

A new means for preserving the conquest

When a monarch conquers a large state, there is an admirable practice,
equally proper for moderating despotism and for preserving the
conquest; those who conquered China put it to use.

In order not to drive the vanquished people to despair and not to
make the victor more arrogant, in order to keep the government from
becoming military and to hold the two peoples to their duty, the Tartar
family now reigning in China has established that each body of troops
in the provinces would be composed half of Chinese and half of
Tartars, so that the jealousy between the two nations will hold them to
their duty. The tribunals are likewise half Chinese, half Tartar. This
produces many good results: 1. the two nations constrain one another;
2. both keep military and civil power, and one is not wiped out by the

Part 2

other; 3. the conquering nation can spread throughout without
weakening and ruining itself; it becomes capable of resisting civil and
foreign wars. This is such a sensible institution, that the absence of a
like one has led to the ruin of almost all the conquerors on earth.

CHAPTER 16

On a despotic state that conquers

An immense conquest presupposes despotism. In this case, the army
that is spread out in the provinces is insufficient. There must always be
a specially trustworthy body around the prince, always ready to assail
the part of the empire that may waver. This guard should constrain the
others and make tremble all those to whom one has been obliged to
leave some authority in the empire. Around the emperor of China, a
massive body of Tartars always stands ready in case of need. Among the
Moguls, among the Turks, and in Japan, there is a body in the prince’s
pay, independent of the one maintained by the revenue from the lands.
These special forces keep the general ones respectful.

■it

CHAPTER 17

Continuation of the same subject

We have said that the states conquered by the despotic monarch should
be feudatory. Historians tire themselves praising the generosity of
conquerors who have returned the crown to princes whom they have
vanquished. Therefore, the Romans, who made kings everywhere in
order to have instruments of servitude, were quite generous. 24 Such an
action is a necessary act. If the conqueror keeps the conquered state,
the governors he sends will not be able to constrain the subjects, nor
will he, his governors. He will be obliged to strip his first patrimony of
troops in order to safeguard the new one. All the misfortunes of the two
states will be shared; the civil war of the one will be the civil war of the
other. But if, on the contraiy, the conqueror returns the throne to the

24 “They considered even kings to be instruments of servitude” [L.] [TzciXus, Agricola 14].

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The laws and offensive force

legitimate prince, he will of necessity have an ally who, with his own
forces, will increase those of the conqueror. We have recently seen
Shah Nadir conquer the treasures of the Mogul and leave Hindustan to
him.

153

BOOK 11

On the laws that form political liberty in
its relation with the constitution

CHAPTER I

General idea

I distinguish the laws that form political liberty in its relation with the
constitution from those that form it in its relation with the citizen. The
first are the subject of the present book; I shall discuss the second in the
next book.

CHAPTER 2

The various significations given to the word liberty

No word has received more different significations and has struck
minds in so many ways as has liberty. Some have taken it for the ease of
removing the one to whom they had given tyrannical power; some, for
the faculty of electing the one whom they w ere to obey; others, for the
right to be armed and to be able to use violence; yet others, for the
privilege of being governed only by a man of their own nation, or by
their own laws.' For a certain people liberty has long been the usage of
wearing a long beard . 2 Men have given this name to one form of
government and have excluded the others. Those who had tasted
republican government put it in this government; those who had
enjoyed monarchical government placed it in monarchy . 3 In short, each

'Cicero [Epistolae ad Atticum 6.1.15] says, “I have copied Scaevola’s edict, which permits
the Greeks to end their differences among themselves according to their laws; this makes
them regard themselves as free peoples.”

2 The Muscovites could not bear Czar Peter’s order to cut them off.

3 The Cappadocians refused the republican state the Romans offered them.

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Political liberty and the constitution

has given the name of liberty to the government that was consistent with
his customs or his inclinations; and as, in a republic, one does not
always have visible and so present the instruments of the ills of which
one complains and as the very laws seem to speak more and the
executors of the law to speak less, one ordinarily places liberty in
republics and excludes it from monarchies. Finally, as in democracies
the people seem very nearly to do what they want, liberty has been
placed in this sort of government and the power of the people has been
confused with the liberty of the people.

CHAPTER 3

What liberty is

It is true that in democracies the people seem to do what they want, but
political liberty in no way consists in doing what one wants. In a state,
that is, in a society where there are laws, liberty can consist only in
having the power to do what one should want to do and in no way being
constrained to do what one should not want to do.

One must put oneself in mind of what independence is and what
liberty is. Liberty is the right to do everything the laws permit; and if
one citizen could do what they forbid, he would no longer have liberty
because the others would likewise have this same power.

C HAPTER 4

Continuation of the same subject

Democracy and aristocracy are not free states by their nature. Political
liberty is found only in moderate governments. But it is not always in
moderate states. It is present only when power is not abused, but it has
eternally been observed that any man who has power is led to abuse it;
he continues until he finds limits. Who would think it! Even virtue has
need of limits.

So that one cannot abuse power, power must check power by the
arrangement of things. A constitution can be such that no one will be

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constrained to do the things the law does not oblige him to do or be kept
from doing the things the law permits him to do.

CHAPTER 5

On the purpose of various states

Although all states have the same purpose in general, which is to
maintain themselves, yet each state has a purpose that is peculiar to it.
Expansion was the purpose of Rome; war, that of Lacedaemonia;
religion, that of the Jewish laws; commerce, that of Marseilles; public
tranquillity, that of the laws of China ; 4 navigation, that of the laws of the
Rhodians; natural liberty was the purpose of the police of the savages;
in general, the delights of the prince are the purpose of the despotic
states; his glory and that of his state, that of monarchies; the
independence of each individual is the purpose of the laws of Poland,
and what results from this is the oppression of all . 5

There is also one nation in the world whose constitution has political
liberty for its direct purpose. We are going to examine the principles on
which this nation founds political liberty. If these principles are good,
liberty will appear there as in a mirror.

Not much trouble need be taken to discover political liberty in the
constitution. If it can be seen where it is, if it has been found, why seek
it?

4 The natural purpose of a state having no enemies on the outside or believing them checked
by barriers.

5 Drawback of the liberum veto.

CHAPTER 6

On the constitution of England

In each state there are three sorts of powers: legislative power,
executive power over the things depending on the right of nations, and
executive power over the things depending on civil right.

By the first, the prince or the magistrate makes laws for a time or for
always and corrects or abrogates those that have been made. By the

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Political liberty and the constitution

second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies,
establishes security, and prevents invasions. By the third, he punishes
crimes or judges disputes between individuals. The last will be called
the power of judging, and the former simply the executive power of the
state.

Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes
from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to
have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot
fear another citizen.

When legislative power is united with executive power in a single
person or in a single body of the magistracy, there is no liberty, because
one can fear that the same monarch or senate that makes tyrannical
laws will execute them tyrannically.

Nor is there liberty if the power of judging is not separate from
legislative power and from executive power. If it were joined to
legislative power, the power over the life and liberty of the citizens
would be arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. If it were
joined to executive power, the judge could have the force of an
oppressor.

All would be lost if the same man or the same body of principal men,
either of nobles, or of the people, exercised these three powers: that of
making the laws, that of executing public resolutions, and that of
judging the crimes or the disputes of individuals.

In most kingdoms in Europe, the government is moderate because
the prince, who has the first two powers, leaves the exercise of the third
to his subjects. Among the Turks, where the three powers are united in
the person of the sultan, an atrocious despotism reigns.

In the Italian republics, where the three powers are united, there is
less liberty than in our monarchies. Thus, in order to maintain itself,
the government needs means as violent as in the government of the
Turks; witness the state inquisitors 6 and the lion’s maw into which an
informer can, at any moment, throw his note of accusation.

Observe the possible situation of a citizen in these republics. The
body of the magistracy, as executor of the laws, retains all the power it
has given itself as legislator. It can plunder the state by using its general
wills; and, as it also has the power of judging, it can destroy each citizen
by using its particular wills.

6 In Venice.

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There, all power is one; and, although there is none of the external
pomp that reveals a despotic prince, it is felt at every moment.

Thus princes who have wanted to make themselves despotic have
always begun by uniting in their person all the magistracies, and many
kings of Europe have begun by uniting all the great posts of their
state.

I do believe that the pure hereditary aristocracy of the Italian
republics is not precisely like the despotism of Asia. The multitude of
magistrates sometimes softens the magistracy; not all the nobles always
concur in the same designs; there various tribunals are formed that
temper one another. Thus, in Venice, the Great Council has legislation;
the Pregadi, execution; Quarantia , the power of judging. But the ill is
that these different tribunals are formed of magistrates taken from the
same body; this makes them nearly a single power.

The power of judging should not be given to a permanent senate but
should be exercised by persons drawn from the body of the people 7 at
certain times of the year in the manner prescribed by law to form a
tribunal which lasts only as long as necessity requires.

In this fashion the power of judging, so terrible among men, being
Cached neither to a certain state nor to a certain profession, becomes,
so to speak, invisible and null. Judges are not continually in view; one
fears the magistracy, not the magistrates."

In important accusations, the criminal in cooperation with the law
must choose the judges, or at least he must be able to challenge so many
of them that those who remain are considered to be of his choice.

The two other powers may be given instead to magistrates or to
permanent bodies because they are exercised upon no individual, the
one being only the general will of the state, and the other, the execution
of that general will.

But though tribunals should not be fixed, judgments should be fixed
to such a degree that they are never anything but a precise text of the
law. If judgments were the individual opinion of a judge, one would live
in this society’ without knowing precisely what engagements one has
contracted.

Further, the judges must be of the same condition as the accused, or

7 As in Athens.

"These juges , “jurors,” as the office is called in English, are judges as they make the
judgments.

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Political liberty and the constitution

his peers, so that he does not suppose that he has fallen into the hands
of people inclined to do him violence.

If the legislative power leaves to the executive power the right to
imprison citizens who can post bail for their conduct, there is no longer
any liberty, unless the citizens are arrested in order to respond without
delay to an accusation of a crime the law has rendered capital; in this
case they are really free because they are subject only to the power of
the law.

But if the legislative power believed itself endangered by some secret
conspiracy against the state or by some correspondence with its
enemies on the outside, it could, for a brief and limited time, permit the
executive power to arrest suspected citizens who would lose their
liberty for a time only so that it would be preserved forever.

And this is the only means consistent with reason of replacing the
tyrannical magistracy of the ephors and the state inquisitors of Venice,
who are also despotic.

As, in a free state, every man, considered to have a free soul, should
be governed by himself, the people as a body should have legislative
power; but, as this is impossible in large states and is subject to many
drawbacks in small ones, the people must have their representatives do
all that they themselves cannot do.

One knows the needs of one’s own town better than those of other
towns, and one judges the ability of one’s neighbors better than that of
one’s other compatriots. Therefore, members of the legislative body
must not be drawn from the body of the nation at large; it is proper for
the inhabitants of each principal town to choose a representative from
it.

The great advantage of representatives is that they are able to discuss
public business. The people are not at all appropriate for such
discussions; this forms one of the great drawbacks of democracy.

It is not necessary that the representatives, who have been generally
instructed by those who have chosen them, be instructed about each
matter of business in particular, as is the practice in the Diets of
Germany. It is true that, in their way, the word of the deputies would
better express the voice of the nation; but it would produce infinite
delays and make each deputy the master of all the others, and on the
most pressing occasions the whole force of the nation could be checked
by a caprice.

Mr. Sidney says properly that when the deputies represent a body of

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people, as in Holland, they should be accountable to those who have
commissioned them; it is another thing when they are deputed by
boroughs, as in England.*

In choosing a representative, all citizens in the various districts
should have the right to vote except those whose estate is so humble
that they are deemed to have no will of their own.

A great vice in most ancient republics was that the people had the
right to make resolutions for action, resolutions which required some
execution, which altogether exceeds the people’s capacity. The people
should not enter the government except to choose their representa-
tives; this is quite within their reach. For if there are few people who
know the precise degree of a man’s ability, yet every one is able to know,
in general, if the one he chooses sees more clearly than most of the
others.

Nor should the representative body be chosen in order to make some
resolution for action, a thing it would not do well, but in order to make
laws or in order to see if those they have made have been well executed;
these are things it can do very well and that only it can do well.

In a state there are always some people who are distinguished by
birth, wealth, or honors; but if they were mixed among the people and if
they had only one voice like the others, the common liberty would be
their enslavement and they would have no interest in defending it,
because most of the resolutions would be against them. Therefore, the
part they have in legislation should be in proportion to the other
advantages they have in the state, which will happen if they form a body
that has the right to check the enterprises of the people, as the people
have the right to check theirs.

Thus, legislative power will be entrusted both to the body of the
nobles and to the body that will be chosen to represent the people, each
of which will have assemblies and deliberations apart and have separate
views and interests.

Among the three powers of which we have spoken, that of judging is
in some fashion, null. There remain only two; and, as they need a
power whose regulations temper them, that part of the legislative body
composed of the nobles is quite appropriate for producing this effect.

The nobility should be hereditary. In the first place, it is so by its
nature; and, besides, it must have a great interest in preserving its

* Algernon Sidney, 1622-1683, an English Whig politician and author of Discourses
Concerning Government (1698), chap. 3, sect. 38.

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Political liberty and the constitution

prerogatives, odious in themselves, and which, in a free state, must
always be endangered.

But, as a hereditary power could be induced to follow its particular
interests and forget those of the people, in the things about which one
has a sovereign interest in corrupting, for instance, in the laws about
levying silver coin, it must take part in legislation only through its
faculty of vetoing and not through its faculty of enacting.

I call the right to order by oneself, or to correct what has been
ordered by another, the faculty of enacting. I call the right to render null a
resolution taken by another the faculty of vetoing, which was the power of
the tribunes of Rome. And, although the one who has the faculty of
vetoing can also have the right to approve, this approval is no more than
a declaration that one does not make use of one’s faculty of vetoing, and
it derives from that faculty.

The executive power should be in the hands of a monarch, because
the part of the government that almost always needs immediate action
is better administered by one than by many, whereas what depends on
legislative power is often better ordered by many than by one.

If there were no monarch and the executive power were entrusted to
a certain number of persons drawn from the legislative body, there
would no longer be liberty, because the two powers would be united,
the same persons sometimes belonging and always able to belong to
both.

If the legislative body were not convened for a considerable time,
there would no longer be liberty. For one of two things would happen:
either there would no longer be any legislative resolution and the state
would fall into anarchy; or these resolutions would be made by the
executive power, and it would become absolute.

It would be useless for the legislative body to be convened without
interruption. That would inconvenience the representatives and
besides would overburden the executive power, which would not think
of executing, but of defending its prerogatives and its right to execute.

In addition, if the legislative body were continuously convened, it
could happen that one would do nothing but replace the deputies who
had died with new deputies; and in this case, if the legislative body were
once corrupted, the ill would be without remedy. When various
legislative bodies follow each other, the people, holding a poor opinion
of the current legislative body, put their hopes, reasonably enough, in
the one that will follow; but if the legislative body were always the same,

1 6 1

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the people, seeing it corrupted, would expect nothing further from its
laws; they would become furious or would sink into indolence.

The legislative body should not convene itself. For a body is
considered to have a will only when it is convened; and if it were not
convened unanimously, one could not identify which part was truly the
legislative body, the part that was convened or the one that was not. For
if it had the right to prorogue itself, it could happen that it would never
prorogue itself; this would be dangerous in the event that it wanted to
threaten executive power. Besides, there are some times more suitable
than others for convening the legislative body; therefore, it must be the
executive power that regulates, in relation to the circumstances it
knows, the time of the holding and duration of these assemblies.

If the executive power does not have the right to check the enter-
prises of the legislative body, the latter will be despotic, for it will wipe
out all the other powers, since it will be able to give to itself all the power
it can imagine.

But the legislative power must not have the reciprocal faculty of
checking the executive power. For, as execution has the limits of its
own nature, it is useless to restrict it; besides, executive power is always
exercised on immediate things. And the power of the tribunes in Rome
was faulty in that it checked not only legislation but even execution; this
caused great ills.

But if, in a free state, legislative power should not have the right to
check executive power, it has the right and should have the faculty to
examine the manner in which the laws it has made have been executed;
and this is the advantage of this government over that of Crete and
Lacedaemonia, where the kosmoi and the ephors were not held account-
able for their administration.

But, whether or not this examination is made, the legislative body
should not have the power to judge the person, and consequently the
conduct, of the one who executes. His person should be sacred
because, as he is necessary to the state so that the legislative body does
not become tyrannical, if he were accused or judged there would no
longer be liberty.

In this case, the state would not be a monarchy but an unfree
republic. But, as he who executes cannot execute badly without having
as ministers wicked counsellors who hate the law although the laws
favor them as men, these counsellors can be sought out and punished.

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Political liberty and the constitution

And this is the advantage of this government over that of Cnidus, where
the people could never get satisfaction for the injustices that had been
done to them, as the law did not permit calling the amymones 8 to
judgment even after their administration . 9

Although in general the power of judging should not be joined to any
part of the legislative power, this is subject to three exceptions founded
on the particular interests of the one who is to be judged.

Important men are always exposed to envy; and if they were judged
by the people, they could be endangered and would not enjoy the
privilege of the last citizen of a free state, of being judged by his peers.
Therefore, nobles must not be called before the ordinary tribunals of
the nation but before that part of the legislative body composed of
nobles.

It could happen that the law, which is simultaneously clairvoyant and
blind, might be too rigorous in certain cases. But the judges of the
nation are, as we have said, only the mouth that pronounces the words
of the law, inanimate beings who can moderate neither its force nor its
rigor. Therefore, the part of the legislative body, which we have just
said is a necessary tribunal on another occasion, is also one on this
occasion; it is for its supreme authority to moderate the law in favor of
the law itself by pronouncing less rigorously than the law.

It could also happen that a citizen, in matters of public business,
might violate the rights of the people and commit crimes that the
established magistrates could not or would not want to punish. But, in
general, the legislative power cannot judge, and even less so in this
particular case, where it represents the interested party, the people.
Therefore, it can be only the accuser. But, before whom will it make its
accusation? Will it bow before the tribunals of law, which are lower than
it and are, moreover, composed of those who, being also of the people,
would be swept along by the authority of such a great accuser? No: in
order to preserve the dignity of the people and the security of the
individual, that part of the legislature drawn from the people must
make its accusation before the part of the legislature drawn from the
nobles, which has neither the same interests nor the same passions.

8 These were magistrates elected annually by the people. See Stephanus of Byzantium
[Ethnika 686; 1958 edn].

9 One could accuse the Roman magistrates after their magistracy. In Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom. J,
bk. 9 [9.37.2-4], see the affair of the tribune Genutius.

Part 2

This last is the advantage of this government over most of the ancient
republics, where there was the abuse that the people were judge and
accuser at the same time.

Executive power, as we have said, should take part in legislation by its
faculty of vetoing; otherwise it will soon be stripped of its prerogatives.
But if legislative power takes part in execution, executive power will
equally be lost.

If the monarch took part in legislation by the faculty of enacting,
there would no longer be liberty. But as in spite of this, he must take
part in legislation in order to defend himself, he must take part in it by
the faculty of vetoing.

The cause of the change in government in Rome was that the senate,
which had one part of the executive power, and the magistrates, who
had the other, did not have the faculty of vetoing, as the people had.

Here, therefore, is the fundamental constitution of the government
of which we are speaking. As its legislative body is composed of two
parts, the one will be chained to the other by their reciprocal faculty of
vetoing. The two will be bound by the executive power, which will itself
be bound by the legislative power.

The form of these three powers should be rest or inaction. But as
they are constrained to move by the necessary motion of things, they
will be forced to move in concert.

As executive power belongs to the legislative only through its faculty
of vetoing, it cannot enter into the discussion of public business. It is
not even necessary for it to propose, because, as it can always
disapprove of resolutions, it can reject decisions on propositions it
would have wanted left unmade.

In some ancient republics, where the people as a body discussed the
public business, it was natural for the executive power to propose and
discuss with them; otherwise, there would have been a strange con-
fusion in the resolutions.

If the executive power enacts on the raising of public funds without
the consent of the legislature, there will no longer be liberty, because
the executive power will become the legislator on the most important
point of legislation.

If the legislative power enacts, not from year to year, but forever, on
the raising of public funds, it runs the risk of losing its liberty, because
the executive power will no longer depend upon it; and when one holds
such a right forever, it is unimportant whether that right comes from

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Political liberty and the constitution

oneself or from another. The same is true if the legislative power
enacts, not from year to year, but forever, about the land and sea forces,
which it should entrust to the executive power.

So that the one who executes is not able to oppress, the armies
entrusted to him must be of the people and have the same spirit as the
people, as they were in Rome until the time of Marius. This can be so in
only two ways: either those employed in the army must have enough
goods to be answerable for their conduct to the other citizens and be
enrolled for a year only, as was practiced in Rome; or, if the troops must
be a permanent body, whose soldiers come from the meanest parts of
the nation, legislative power must be able to disband them as soon as
the legislature so desires; the soldiers must live with the citizens, and
there must not be a separate camp, a barracks, or a fortified place.

Once the army is established, it should be directly dependent on the
executive power, not on the legislative body; and this is in the nature of
the thing, as its concern is more with action than with deliberation.

Men’s manner of thinking is to make more of courage than of
timidity; more of activity than of prudence; more of force than of
counsel. The army will always scorn a senate and respect its officers. It
will not make much of the orders sent from a body composed of people
it believes timid and, therefore, unworthy to command it. Thus,
whenever the army depends solely on the legislative body, the govern-
ment will become military. And if the contrary has ever occured, it is
the effect of some extraordinary circumstances; it is because the army
there is always separate, because it is composed of several bodies each
of which depends upon its particular province, because the capitals are
in excellent locations whose situation alone defends them and which
have no troops.

Holland is even more secure than Venice; it could flood rebellious
troops; it could leave them to die of hunger; since the troops are not in
towns that could give them sustenance, their sustenance is precarious.

For if, in the case of an army governed by the legislative body,
particular circumstances keep the government from becoming military,
one will encounter other drawbacks; one of these two things must
happen, either the army must destroy the government, or the govern-
ment must weaken the army.

And this weakening will have a fatal cause: it will arise from the very
weakness of the government.

If one wants to read the admirable work by Tacitus, On the Mores of

Part 2

the Germans™ one will see that the English have taken their idea of
political government from the Germans. This fine system was found in
the forests.

Since all human things have an end, the state of which we are
speaking will lose its liberty; it will perish. Rome, Lacedaemonia, and
•Carthage have surely perished. This state will perish when legislative
power is more corrupt than executive power.

It is not for me to examine whether at present the English enjoy this
liberty or not. It suffices for me to say that it is established by their laws,
and I seek no further.

I do not claim hereby to disparage other governments, or to say that
this extreme political liberty should humble those who have only a
moderate one. How could I say that, I who believe that the excess even
of reason is not always desirable and that men almost always accom-
modate themselves better to middles than to extremities?

Harrington, in his Oceana / has also examined the furthest point of
liberty to which the constitution of a state can be carried. But of him it
can be said that he sought this liberty only after misunderstanding it,
and that he built Chalcedon with the coast of Byzantium before his
eyes.

l0 “On lesser matters the princes consult, on greater ones, everybody does; yet even when a
decision is in the power of the people, it is thoroughly considered by the princes” [L.J.
[Tacitus, Germania, chap, i i.J

“James Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana.

CHAPTER 7

The monarchies that we know

The monarchies we know do not have liberty for their direct purpose as
does the one we have just mentioned; they aim only for the glory of the
citizens, the state, and the prince. But this glory results in a spirit of
liberty that can, in these states, produce equally great things and can
perhaps contribute as much to happiness as liberty itself.

The three powers are not distributed and cast on the model of the
constitution which we have mentioned; each instance shows a particu-
lar distribution of them and each approximates political liberty accord-

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Political liberty and the constitution

ingly; and, if it did not approximate it, the monarchy would degenerate
into despotism.

CHAPTER 8

Why the ancients had no clear idea of monarchy

The ancients did not at all know the government founded on a body of
nobility and even less the government founded on a legislative body
formed of the representatives of a nation. The republics of Greece and
Italy were towns in which each had its own government and assembled
its own citizens within its walls. Before the Romans had swallowed up
all the republics, there were almost no kings anywhere, in Italy, Gaul,
Spain, Germany; all of these were small peoples or small republics.
Even Africa was subject to a large republic; Asia Minor was occupied
by Greek colonies. Therefore, there was no example either of deputies
from towns or of assemblies of the estates; one had to go as far as Persia
to find the government of one alone.

It is true that there were federal republics; many towns sent deputies
to an assembly. But I say that there was no monarchy on this model.

Here is how the plan for the monarchies that we know was formed.
The Germanic nations who conquered the Roman Empire were very
free, as is known. On the subject one has only to see Tacitus on the
Mores of the Germans. The conquerors spread out across the country;
they lived in the countryside, rarely in the towns. When they were in
Germany, the whole nation could be assembled. When they dispersed
during the conquest, they could no longer assemble. Nevertheless, the
nation had to deliberate on its business as it had done before the
conquest; it did so by representatives. Here is the origin of Gothic
government among us. It was at first a mixture of aristocracy and
monarchy. Its drawback was that the common people were slaves; it
was a good government that had within itself the capacity to become
better. Giving letters of emancipation became the custom, and soon the
civil liberty of the people, the prerogatives of the nobility and of the
clergy, and the power of the kings, were in such concert that there has
never been, I believe, a government on earth as well tempered as that of
each part of Europe during the time that this government continued to
exist; and it is remarkable that the corruption of the government of a

Part 2

conquering people should have formed the best kind of government
men have been able to devise.

chapter 9

Aristotle's manner of thinking

An awkwardness is clearly seen in Aristotle’s treatment of monarchy . 1 1
He establishes five kinds: he does not distinguish among them by the
form of the constitution but by accidental things, like the virtues or the
vices of the prince, or by extrinsic things, like the usurpation of the
tyranny or succession to it.

Aristotle includes in the list of monarchies both the empire of the
Persians and the kingdom ofLacedaemonia. But who does not see that
the one was a despotic state and the other a republic?

The ancients, who did not know of the distribution of the three
powers in the government of one alone, could not achieve a correct idea
of monarchy.

11 (Aristotle) Pol., bk. 3, chap. 14 [1 284535—1 28sb33].

CHAPTER 10

The manner of thinking of other political men

In order to temper the government of one alone, Arribas , 12 king of
Epirus, could imagine only a republic. The Molossians, not knowing
how to restrict this power, made two kings ; 13 this weakened the state
more than the command: one wanted rivals, and one had enemies.

Two kings were allowed only in Lacedaemonia; they did not form
the constitution there but rather were a part of the constitution.

12 See Justin [Epitome historiarum Philippicarum\, bk. 17 [17. 3. 12].
13 Aristotle, Pol., bk. 5, chap. 9 [1313324],

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Political liberty and the constitution

CHAPTER II

On the kings of heroic times among the Greeks

Among the Greeks in heroic times, a kind of monarchy was established
that did not continue to exist . 14 Those who had invented the arts, waged
war for the people, assembled men who were scattered here and there
or given them lands, won the kingdom for themselves and passed it
down to their children. They were kings, priests, and judges. This is
one of the five kinds of monarchy of which Aristotle speaks , 15 and this is
the only one that might arouse the idea of the monarchical constitution.
But the plan of this constitution is the opposite of that of our
monarchies today.

The three powers were distributed there so that the people had the
legislative power , 16 and the king, the executive power and the power of
judging; whereas, in the monarchies we know, the prince has the
executive and the legislative power, or at least a part of the legislative
power, but he does not judge.

In the government of the kings of heroic times, the three powers
were badly distributed. These monarchies could not continue to exist;
for, as soon as the people could legislate, they could reduce royalty to
nothing at the least caprice, as they did everywhere.

Among a free people who have legislative power, among a people
enclosed within a town, where everything odious becomes even more
odious, the masterwork of legislation is to know where properly to place
the power of judging. But it could not be placed worse than in the hands
of the one who already had executive power. The monarch became
terrible immediately. But at the same time, since he did not legislate, he
could not defend himself against legislation; he had too much power
and he did not have enough.

It had not yet been discovered that the prince’s true function was to
establish judges and not to judge. The opposite policy rendered
unbearable the government of one alone. All these kings were driven
out. The Greeks did not imagine the true distribution of the three
powers in the government of one alone, they imagined it only in the

14 Aristotle, Pol., bk. 3, chap. 14 [1 285b2— 19]. l5 Ibid. [Aristotle, Pol. I285b2-i9).

l6 See Plutarch [Vit.\, Theseus [24, 25.2]. See also Thucydides [The Peloponnesian War], bk. 1

[1-13]-

Part 2

government of many, and they called this sort of constitution,

police } ld

17 See Aristotle, Pol.,bV.. 4, chap. 8 [1293830-1294325].

‘'Here Montesquieu makes a connection between police (see note r , bk. 4; note rf , bk. 12;
note r , bk. 26) and the "polity” of the Greeks.

CHAPTER 12

On the government of the Roman kings and how the three
powers were distributed in it

The government of the Roman kings was somewhat related to that of
the kings of heroic times among the Greeks. Like them it fell, from its
general vice, although in itself and in its particular nature it was very
good.

In order to make this government understood, I shall distinguish the
government of the first five kings from that of Servius Tullius and from
that ofTarquin.

The crown was elective; and under the first five kings, the senate
took the greatest part in their election.

After a king died, the senate considered whether one would keep the
form of government that had been established. If the senate judged it
advisable to keep the form of government, it named a magistrate 18
drawn from its body to elect a king; the senate had to approve the
election; the people, to confirm it; the auspices, to guarantee it. If one of
these three conditions were missing, there had to be another election.

The constitution was monarchical, aristocratic, and popular, and
such was the harmony of power that there was neither jealousy nor
dispute in the first reigns. The king commanded the armies and had the
stewardship of the sacrifices; he had the power of judging civil 19 and
criminal 20 suits; he convoked the senate; he assembled the people; he

18 Dion. Hal. (An t. Rom.], bk. 2, p. 120 [2.58.3]; bk. 4, pp. 242-243 [4.40.2].

19 See the discourse by Tanaquil in Livy, decade i,bk. 1 [1.41, 43]; and the ruling of Servius
Tullius in Dion. Hal. (Ant. Rom.], bk. 4, p. 229 [4.25.2].

20 See Dion. Hal. (Ant. Rom.], bk. 2, p. 118 [2.56.3; see also 2.14.1], and bk. 3, p. 171
13 - 30 - 1 - 51 -

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Political liberty and the constitution

brought certain matters of public business before them and ruled on
others with the senate . 21

The senate had great authority. The kings often picked senators to
judge with them; they brought matters of public business to the people
only after these had been deliberated upon in the senate . 22

The people had the right to elect magistrates , 23 to consent to the new
laws, and, when the king permitted, to declare war and to make peace.
They did not have the power to judge. When Tullius Hostilius referred
the judgment of Horatius to the people, he had particular reasons that
are found in Dionysius of Halicarnassus . 24

The constitution changed under Servius Tullius . 25 The senate had
no part in his election; he had himself proclaimed king by the people.
He divested himself of civil judgments 26 and kept only criminal
judgments for himself; he carried all public business directly to the
people; he relieved the people of taxes and put the entire load on the
patricians. Thus, to the extent that he weakened the royal power and
the authority of the senate, he increased the power of the people . 27

Tarquin had himself elected neither by the senate nor by the people;
he regarded Servius Tullius as a usurper and took the crown as a
hereditary right; he exterminated most of the senators; he no longer
consulted those who remained and did not even summon them to hear
his judgments . 28 His power increased, but what was odious about this
power became still more odious: he usurped the power of the people;
he made laws without them; he even made some in opposition to
them . 29 He would have united the three powers in his person, but the
people remembered at a certain moment that they were the legislator,
and Tarquin was no longer.

21 It was by a senatus-consult that Tullius Hostilius was sent to destroy Alba. Dion. Hal.
[Ant. Rom. j, bk. 3, pp. 167 and 172 [3.26.6; 3.31. 1-2].

22 Ibid. [Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom.], bk. 4, p. 276 ([275] 4.84.2; see also 4.75.4].

23 Ibid. [Dion. Hal.,Ant. Rom.], bk. 2 [2.14.3], They nevertheless must not have filled all the
posts, because Valerius Publicola made the famous law forbidding any citizen to hold any
post unless he had obtained it by the suffrage of the people.

24 [Dion. Hal ,,Ant. Rom.] bk. 3, p. 159 [3.22.4-8].

25 [Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom.] bk. 4 [4.40.1].

26 “He gave up half the royal power,” says Dion. Hal. [Ant . Rom.], bk. 4, p. 229 [4.25.1 ].

■^People believed that if he had not been prevented by Tarquin, he would have established
popular government. Dion. Hal. [Ant . Rom.], bk. 4, p. 243 [4.40.3].

28 Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 4 [4.42.4].

29 Ibid. [Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom., 4.43-44.]

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Part 2

CHAPTER 13

General Reflections on the state of Rome after the expulsion
of the kings

One can never leave the Romans; thus it is that even today in their
capital one leaves the new palaces to go in search of the ruins; thus it is
that the eye that has rested on flower-strewn meadows likes to look at
rocks and mountains.

The patrician families had always had great prerogatives. These
distinctions, great under the kings, became much more important after
the kings were expelled. This caused jealousy among the plebeians,
who wanted to bring down the patricians. Disputes struck at the
constitution without weakening the government, for, provided the
magistracies preserved their authority, it did not matter from which
family the magistrates came.

An elective monarchy, as was Rome, necessarily assumes a powerful
aristocratic body that sustains it; this failing, it changes immediately
into a tyranny or into a popular state. But a popular state does not need
family distinctions to maintain itself. This is why the patricians, who
were necessary parts of the constitution at the time of the kings, became
a superfluous part of it at the time of the consuls; the people were able
to bring down the patricians without destroying themselves and to
change the constitution without corrupting it.

When Servius Tullius debased the patricians, Rome had to fall from
the hands of the kings into those of the people. But when the people
brought the patricians down, they did not have to fear falling back into
the hands of the kings.

A state can change in two ways: either because its constitution is
corrected or because it is corrupted. If the state has preserved its
principles and its constitution changes, the latter corrects itself; if the
state has lost its principles when its constitution starts to change, the
constitution is corrupted.

After the expulsion of the kings, Rome would have been a
democracy. The people already had legislative power; their unanimous
vote had driven out the kings, and if their will had flagged, the Tarquins
could have returned at any moment. To claim that the people had
wanted to drive away the kings only to become slaves to a few families
would not be reasonable. Therefore the situation required that Rome

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Political liberty and the constitution

be a democracy, but nevertheless it was not one. The power of the
principal men had yet to be tempered, and the laws had yet to be
inclined toward democracy.

States are often more flourishing during the imperceptible shift from
one constitution to another than they are under either constitution. At
that time all the springs of the government are stretched; ail the citizens
have claims; one is attacked or flattered; and there is a noble rivalry
between those who defend the declining constitution and those who
put forward the one that prevails.

CHAPTER 14

How the distribution of the three powers began to change
after the expulsion of the kings

Four things principally ran counter to the liberty of Rome. The
patricians alone had obtained all the sacred, political, civil and military
employments; an exorbitant power had been attached to the consulate;
the people were subjected to outrages; finally, they had almost no
influence left in the voting. The people corrected these four abuses.

1 . They had it established that there would be magistracies to which
plebeians could aspire, and they gradually obtained a place for them-
selves in all of them except that of the Interrex.

2. The consulate was broken up and formed into several magistra-
cies. Praetors were created 30 who were given the power to judge on
private suits; quaestors 31 were named in order to have public crimes
judged; aediles were established to whom supervision of the police was
given; also treasurers 32 were made who were to administer the public
monies; finally, by the creation of censors, the consuls were removed
from the part of the legislative power that regulates the mores of
citizens and the immediate police of the various bodies of the state. The
principal prerogatives that remained to the consuls were that they
presided over the great assemblies of the people, 33 convened the
senate, and commanded the armies.

30 Livy, decade 1, bk. 6 [6.42.1 1].

Quaes tores parricidi : Magistrates to try parricides. Pomponius, Law 2, para. 23 [Corpus Juris
Civilis, Digest 1 .2.23]; de origine juris et omnium magistratuum et successione prudentum.

32 Plutarch \Vit.\, Publicola [12.2].

33 Comitiis centuriatis.

1 73

Part 2

3. The sacred laws established tribunes who could, at any moment,
check the enterprises of the patricians and who prevented not only
particular wrongs but also general ones.

Finally, the plebeians increased that influence in public decisions.
The Roman people were divided in three ways: by centuries, by curiae,
and by tribes; and when they voted, they were convened and formed in
one of these three ways.

In the first, the patricians, the principal men, the rich people, and the
senate, groups that were nearly the same, had almost all the authority;
in the second, they had less; in the third, still less.

The division by centuries was a division based on the census and on
means, rather than a division by persons. The whole of the people was
divided into one hundred and ninety-three centuries, 34 each having
one vote. The patricians and the principal men formed the first ninety-
eight centuries; the rest of the citizens were spread over the other
ninety-five. Therefore the patricians were the masters of the votes in
this division.

In the division by curiae, 35 the patricians did not have the same
advantages. Yet they had some. The auspices had to be consulted, and
the patricians were in control of them; no proposition could be made to
the people that had not previously been brought to the senate and
approved by a senatus-consult. But in the division by tribes, there was
no question of auspices or of senatus-consult, and the patricians were
not admitted.

Now, the people kept on seeking to use the division by curiae for
those assemblies that were customarily divided by centuries and the
division by tribes for those assemblies that were done by curiae, which
led to the transfer of public business from the hands of the patricians
into those of the plebeians.

Thus, when the plebeians had gained the right to judge patricians,
beginning with the affair of Coriolanus, 36 the plebeians wanted to judge
them assembled by tribes 37 and not by centuries; and when the new
magistracies of tribunes and aediles, which favored the people, were

^See on this, Livy, bk. 1 [1.43]; and Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 4 [4.16-22] and bk. 7
[7.59.2-8].

35 Dion. Hal. [Ant . Rom.], bk. 9, p. 598 [9.41.2-4].

36 Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 7 [7.59.9-10].

37 Contrary to the former usage, as can be seen in Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 5, p. 320
[5.10.7].

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Political liberty and the constitution

established , 38 the people obtained that they would be assembled by
curiae to name them; and when their power was firm, they gained the
naming of the tribunes and the aediles in an assembly by tribes . 39

38 [Dion. Hal. ,Ant. Rom.] bk. 6, pp. 410 and 41 1 [6.89.1-2]. [On the aediles, see 6.90.]
39 [Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom.] bk. 9, p. 605 [9.43.4].

CHAPTER 15

How , in the flourishing state of the republic,

Rome suddenly lost its liberty

In the heat of the disputes between the patricians and the plebeians, the
latter asked for fixed laws to be given so that judgments would no longer
be the result of a capricious will or an arbitrary power. After much
resistance, the senate acquiesced. Decemvirs were named to compose
these laws. It was believed that they had to be granted great power
because they had to give laws to parties that were almost incompatible.
The naming of all the magistrates was suspended, and in the comitia
they were elected sole administrators of the republic. They were
invested with both the power of the consuls and the power of the
tribunes. The former gave them the right to convene the senate; the
latter, that of convening the people; but they convoked neither the
senate nor the people. Ten men alone in the republic had all the
legislative power, all the executive power, all the power of judgment.
Rome saw itself subject to a tyranny as cruel as that of Tarquin. When
Tarquin exercised his oppressive measures, Rome was indignant at the
power he had usurped; when the decemvirs exercised theirs, it was
astonished by the power it had given away.

But what was this tyrannical system, produced by people who had
gained political and military power only from their knowledge of civil
business, and who in the circumstances of that time needed the
citizens’ cowardice inside so that they would let themselves be gov-
erned, and the citizens’ courage outside as a defense?

The spectacle of the death of Virginia, sacrificed by her father to
modesty and to liberty, made the power of the decemvirs evaporate.
Each man was free because each one was offended; everyone became a
citizen because everyone was a father. The senate and the people

i75

' £art 2

returned to a liberty that had been entrusted to ridiculous tyrants.

The Roman people, more than any other, were moved by spectacles.
That of the bloody body of Lucretia brought royalty to an end. The
debtor who appeared covered with sores in the square changed the
form of the republic. The sight of Virginia drove out the decemvirs. For
Manlius to be condemned, the people had to be put where they could
not see the Capitol. The bloody robe of Caesar returned Rome to
servitude.

CHAPTER l6

On legislative power in the Roman republic

There were no rights to dispute under the decemvirs, but when liberty
returned, jealousies could be seen anew; so long as some privileges
remained to the patricians, the plebeians took them away.

Little ill would have been done if the plebeians had been satisfied to
deprive the patricians of the prerogatives instead of also offending
them in their status as citizens.' - When the people were assembled by
curiae or by centuries, they were composed of senators, patricians and
plebeians. In the disputation, the plebeians won the point 40 that they
alone, without the patricians or the senate, could make laws, which
were called plebiscites, and the comitia where they were made was
called the comitia by tribes. Thus, there were cases in which the
patricians 41 had no part in legislative power 42 and in which they were
subject to the legislative power of another body of the state. It was a
frenzy of liberty. The people, in order to establish democracy, ran
counter to the very principles of democracy. It seemed that such an
exorbitant power should have reduced the authority of the senate to

^Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. u,p. 725 [11.45].

41 By the sacred laws, the plebeians could hold plebiscites alone and without admitting the
patricians to their assembly. Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 6, p. 410 [6.89} and bk. 7, p. 430
[7.16.1-2].

42 By the law made after the expulsion of the decemvirs, patricians were made subject to
plebiscites though they had no voice in them. Livy, bk. 3 [3.55.3]; and Dion. Hal. [Ant.
Rom.], bk. 1 1, p. 775 [1 1 .45]. And this law was confirmed by that of Publius Philo, dictator
in the Roman year 416 [338(339) b.c.]. Livy, bk. 8 [8.12.14-16].

e qualite de citoyen.

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Political liberty and the constitution

nothing; but Rome had admirable institutions. These were principally
two: in the one, the legislative power of the people was regulated; in the
other, it was limited.

Every five years the censors formed and created the body of the
people, as the consuls had formerly done ; 43 they exercised legislation
even over the body that had legislative power. “Tiberius Gracchus,
censor,” says Cicero, “transferred the freedmen to the tribes of the
town, not by the force of his eloquence, but by a word and by a gesture,
and if he had not, we would no longer have this republic, which we
barely sustain today.”/

On the other hand, the senate had the power to remove the republic
from the hands of the people, so to speak, by creating a dictator before
whom the sovereign bowed and the most popular laws remained
silent . 44

43 In the Roman year 312 [442 b.c.], the consuls still took the census, as appears in Dion.
Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 11 [11.63.2].

44 Such as those that permitted the ordinances of every magistrate to be appealed to the
people.

^Cicero, lie oratore 1.9.38.

CHAPTER 17

On executive power in the same republic

If the people were jealous of their legislative power, they were less so of
their executive power. They left it almost entirely to the senate and the
consuls, and they reserved to themselves scarcely more than the right to
elect magistrates and to confirm the acts of the senate and of the
generals.

Rome, whose passion was to command, whose ambition was to
subject everything, who had always usurped, who usurped still, con-
tinually pursued great matters of public business; its enemies plotted
against it, or it plotted against them.

As it was obliged to conduct itself, on the one hand, with heroic
courage and, on the other hand, with consummate wisdom, the state of
things required that the senate direct public business. The people
quarreled with the senate over all the branches of legislative power,

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because they were jealous of their liberty; they did not quarrel with it
over the branches of executive power, because they were jealous of
their glory.

The part played by the senate in executive power was so great that
Polybius 45 says all foreigners thought that Rome was an aristocracy.
The senate disbursed the public funds and farmed out the revenues; it
was the arbiter for suits of the allies; it decided on war and peace and
directed the consuls in this regard; it fixed the number of Roman and
allied troops, distributed the provinces and the armies to the consuls or
the praetors, and, when their year of command expired, it could give
them to a successor; it decreed triumphs; it received and sent embas-
sies; it named kings, rewarded them, punished them, judged them, and
gave or made them lose the title of allies of the Roman people.

The consuls levied the troops that they were to lead to war; they
commanded the armies on land or on sea, they marshaled the allies; in
the provinces they had all the power of the republic; they made peace
with vanquished peoples, and imposed conditions on them or referred
them to the senate.

In early times, when the people had some part in the business of war
and peace, they exercised their legislative power rather than their
executive power. They scarcely did more than confirm what the kings
had done and what the consuls or the senate had done after them. The
people were so far from being the arbiters of war that we see that the
consuls or the senate often made war in spite of the opposition of their
tribunes. But in the drunkenness of their prosperity, they increased
their executive power/ Thus , 46 they themselves created tribunes in the
legions who had until then been named by the generals, and some time
before the first Punic War they ruled that they alone would have the
right to declare war . 47

45 [Polybius, Historiae] bk. 6 [6.13.8-9].

^In the Roman year 444 [310 B.C.], Livy, bk. 9 [9.30.3]. When the war against Perseus
appeared perilous, a senatus-consult ordained that this law would be suspended, and the
people consented to it. Livy, decade 5, bk. 2 [42.31.5].

47 They wrested it from the senate, says Johann Freinsheim [Supplementorum Livianorum],
decade 2, bk. 6 [16.23].

*This sentence appears in earlier editions, but not in the Masson edition. We have
included it here as it seems to be required for the sense of the paragraph.

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Political liberty and the constitution

CHAPTER l8

On the power of judging in the Roman government

The power of judging was given to the people, to the senate, to the
magistrates, and to certain judges. Its distribution must be seen. I begin
with matters of civil business.

After the kings, the consuls judged, 48 and the praetors judged after
the consuls. Servius Tullius had divested himself of judging civil suits;
the consuls did not judge them either except in very rare cases 49 that
were called, for this reason, extraordinary , 50 They were satisfied to
name the judges and to form the tribunals that were to judge. It seems,
according to the discourse of Appius Claudius, in Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, 51 that as early as the Roman year 259 [495 b.c.] this
was regarded as an established custom among the Romans, and tracing
it back to Servius Tullius is not going very far back.

Each year, the praetor made a list 52 or table of those he chose to
perform the function of judges during the year of his magistracy. A
number sufficient for each suit was taken from it. The English practice
is quite similar. And, what was very favorable to liberty 53 is that the
praetor selected the judges with the consent of both parties. 54 That
many objections to judges may be made in England today amounts to
approximately this usage.

These judges decided only questions of fact; 55 for example, if a sum
had been paid or not, if an action had been committed or not. But

48 One cannot doubt that before the creation of the praetors, the consuls had had civil
judgments. See Livy, decade i, bk. 2, p. 19 [2. 1.7-8]; Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 10, p.
627 [10.1.3], and bk. 10, p. 645 {10.19.1].

49 The tribunes often judged alone; nothing made them more odious. Dion. Hal. [Ant.
Rom.], bk. 11, p. 709 [1 1. 39.1].

50 Judicia extraordinaria : a legal investigation not following the normal procedure. See
Institutes, bk. 4 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Institutes 4.15.8; de interdict is],

51 [Dion. Hal .,Ant. Rom.] bk. 6, p. 360 [6.24.1].

52 Album judicum : a list of judges chosen by the quaestors.

53 In Pro Cluentio [43 .120], Cicero says, “Our ancestors did not want a man upon whom the
parties had not agreed to be able to be a judge of the reputation of a citizen or of the
slightest pecuniary matter.”

54 In the fragments of the Servilian law, the Cornelian law, and others, see the way in which
these laws provided the judges in the crimes they proposed to punish. The judges were
often selected by choice, sometimes by lot, or, finally, by lot and choice together.

35 Seneca, De beneficiis, bk. 3, chap. 7 in fine [3.7.5— 7].

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because questions of right 56 required a certain ability, these were taken
to the tribunal of the centumvirs . 57

The kings kept for themselves the judgment of criminal suits, and
the consuls succeeded them in this. As a consequence of this authority
the consul Brutus had his children put to death as well as all who had
conspired on behalf of the Tarquins. This power was exorbitant. The
consuls, who already held military power, carried its exercise even into
the public business of the town, and their proceedings, devoid of the
forms of justice, were violent actions rather than judgments.

This brought about the Valerian law, which permitted an appeal to
the people of all the ordinances of the consuls that might imperil the life
of a citizen. The consuls could no longer pronounce a capital penalty
against a Roman citizen except with the will of the people . 58

One sees in the first conspiracy to reinstate the Tarquins that the
consul Brutus judges the guilty; in the second, the senate and the
comitia are convened to judge . 59

The laws called sacred gave the plebeians the tribunes, who formed a
body that at first made immense claims. One does not know which was
greater, the cowardly effrontery of the plebeians in asking or the
complaisance and readiness of the senate in acquiescing. The Valerian
law had permitted appeals to the people, that is, to the people
composed of senators, patricians, and plebeians. The plebeians
established that appeals would be brought before them. Soon the
question was raised as to whether the plebeians could judge a patrician;
this was the subject of a debate that arose with the affair of Coriolanus
and ended with it. Coriolanus, accused by the tribunes before the
people, maintained, contrary to the spirit of the Valerian law, that,
being a patrician, he could be judged only by the consuls; the plebeians,
contrary to the spirit of the same law, claimed that he was to be judged
by them alone, and they judged him.

The Law of the Twelve Tables modified the preceding. It ordered
that one could not decide upon the life of a citizen except in the great

56 See Quintilian [ Institutio oratorio], bk. 4, p. 54, Paris edn. 1541 [4.2.5).

57 Law 2, para. 24 [Corpus Juris Chilis, Digest 1 .2.24); de origine juris et omnium magistratuum
et successione prudentum. Magistrates called decemvirs presided at the judgment, and the
entire proceeding was under the direction of a praetor.

58 “Thus it was not permissible for the consuls to pronounce the capital penalty against a
Roman citizen without the command of the Roman people” [L.J. See Pomponius, Law 2,
para, 16 [Corpus Juris Chilis, Digest 1.2.23]; & origine juris et omnium magistratuum et
successione prudentum.

59 Dion. Haf. [Ant. Rom.\, bk. 5, p. 322 [5.10.7].

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Political liberty and the constitution

estates of the people . 60 Thus, the body of plebeians, or what is the same
thing, the comitia by tribes, no longer judged any but the crimes whose
penalty was only a pecuniary fine. There had to be a law to inflict a
capital penalty; to condemn to a pecuniary penalty, there had only to be
a plebiscite.

This provision of the Law of the Twelve Tables was very wise. It led
to forming an admirable conciliation between the body of the plebeians
and the senate. For, as the competence of each to judge depended on
the magnitude of the penalty and the nature of the crime, they had to
join together.

The Valerian law removed all that remained in Rome of that
government which was related to the Greek kings of heroic times. The
consuls found themselves without the power to punish crimes.
Although all crimes are public, one must distinguish between those of
more interest to the citizens among themselves and those of more
interest to the state in its relation with a citizen. The first crimes are
called private, the second are public. The people themselves judged
public crimes, and in regard to private ones, they named through a
particular commission a quaestor to pursue each crime. The people
often chose one of the magistrates, but sometimes they chose a private
man. He was called a questor of parricide. This is mentioned in the Law
of the Twelve Tables . 61

The questor named the judge of the question, as he was called, who
picked the judges by lot, formed the tribunal, and presided under him
at the judgment . 62

It is well to observe here the part the senate took in naming the
questor, so that one may see how the powers were balanced in this
regard. Sometimes the senate had a dictator elected to perform the
function of the questor ; 63 sometimes it ordered the people to be
convoked by a tribune so that they would name a questor ; 64 finally, the

60 The comitia by centuries. Thus Manlius Capitolinus was judged in these comitia. Livy,
decade i, bk. 6, p. 68 [6.20.10].

61 So Pomponius says in Law 2, Digest [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 1 .2.23]; de origine juris et
omnium magistratuum et successione prudentum. [See bk. 1 1, n. 31.)

62 See a fragment of Ulpian, who reports of another one in the Cornelian law; it is found in
the Mosaicarum et Romanorum legum collatio, tit. 1 [1.1.3; 2 > 544, FIRA\\ de sicariis et
homicidiis.

62 That occurred chiefly in the crimes committed in Italy, where the senate had a principal
inspection. See Livy, decade 1, bk. 9 [9.26.6-19], on the conspiracies of Capua.

64 It was thus in the prosecution resulting from the death of Posthumius, in the Roman year
340 [414 B.c.]. See Livy [4.50.3-5].

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people sometimes named a magistrate to report to the senate about a
certain crime and to ask it to name a questor, as seen in the judgment of
Lucius Scipio 65 in Livy. 66

In the Roman year 604 [150 b.c.], some of these commissions were
made permanent. 67 One gradually divided all criminal matters into
various parts, which were called perpetual questions. Various praetors
were created, and each was given one of these questions. The praetors
were given the power to judge the crimes which fell to them for a year,
and after that they went to govern their provinces.

In Carthage, the senate of the One Hundred was composed of
judges serving for life. 68 But in Rome the praetors served for one year
and the judges served even less than a year because they were chosen
for each suit. One has seen, in chapter 6 of this Book, how much this
provision was favorable to liberty in certain governments.

Judges were drawn from the order of senators until the times of the
Gracchi. Tiberius Gracchus ordered that they be drawn from that of
knights; this was such a considerable change that the tribune boasted of
having by a single rogation cut the sinews of the senatorial order.

It must be observed that the three powers may be well distributed in
relation to the liberty of the constitution, though they are not so well
distributed in their relation with the liberty of the citizen. In Rome, as
the people had the greater part of the legislative power, part of the
executive power, and part of the power of judging, they were a great
power that had to be counter- balanced by another. The senate
certainly had part of the executive power; it had some branch of the
legislative power, 69 but this was not enough to counter-balance the
people. It had to have part of the power of judging, and it had a part
when judges were chosen from among the senators. When the Gracchi
deprived the senators of the power of judging, 70 the senate could no
longer stand up to the people. Therefore, they ran counter to the liberty
of the constitution in order to favor the liberty of the citizen, but the
latter was lost along with the former.

65 This judgment was rendered in the Roman year 567 [187 b.c.].

“[Livy] bk. 8 [38.54I.

67 Cicero, Brutus [27.106].

“This is proven by Livy, bk. 43 [33.46.7], who says that Hannibal made the magistracy
annual.

69 The senatus consults were in force for a year, though they were not confirmed by the
people. Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 9, p. 595 [9.37.2], and bk. 11, p. 735 [1 1.60.5].

70 In the year 630 [124 b.c.].

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Political liberty and the constitution

Infinite ills resulted. The constitution was changed at a time when, in
the heat of civil discords, there was scarcely a constitution. The knights
were no longer the middle order uniting the people and the senate, and
the chain of the constitution was broken.

There were also some particular reasons that should have kept
judging from being transfered to the knights. The Roman constitution
was founded on the principle that those who had enough goods to be
responsible to the republic for their conduct should be soldiers. The
knights, as the richest men, formed the cavalry of the legions. When
their status was raised, they refused to serve any longer in this guard;
another cavalry had to be levied; Marius admitted all sorts of people
into the legions, and the republic was lost . 71

In addition, the knights were the tax-collectors of the republic; they
were rapacious, they heaped misfortune on misfortune and made
public needs rise from public needs. Far from giving such people the
power of judging, they should continually have been watched by
judges. It must be said in praise of the old French laws that the
stipulations made for the men of public business were made with the
distrust one has for enemies. In Rome, when judgments were trans-
ferred to the tax-collectors, virtue, police, laws, magistracy, and
magistrates were no longer.

An artless picture of this is found in fragments of Diodorus of Sicily
and of Dio. Diodorus 72 says, “Mutius Scaevola wanted to call back the
old mores and live from his own means with frugality and integrity. For
his predecessors, in league with the tax-collectors who were at that time
judging in Rome, had filled the province with all sorts of crimes. But
Scaevola meted out justice to the publicans and put into prison those
who had been sending others there.”

Dio tells us 73 that Publius Rutilius, his lieutenant, who was no less
odious to the knights, was accused on his return of having accepted
some presents and was condemned to pay a fine. He surrendered his
goods at once. His innocence was manifest, for he was found to have
many fewer goods than he was accused of having stolen and he showed
the titles to the property; he would no longer remain in the town with
such people.

71 Capite censos plerosque : most from the poorest citizens. Sallust, Jurgurtha [86.2].

72 Fragment of this author [Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica), bk. 36 [37.5], in the
collection of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Extracts of Virtues and Vices.

73 Fragment of [Cass. Dio] Historia Romana [28.97] drawn from the Extracts of Virtues and
Vices.

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Diodorus says further , 74 “The Italians bought troops of slaves in
Sicily to plow their fields and care for their herds; they refused them
food. These unfortunate men were obliged to rob on the highways,
armed with lances and clubs, covered with the skins of beasts and
accompanied by big dogs. The whole province was ravaged, and the
people of that country could properly call their own only the things
within the town walls. There was neither proconsul nor praetor who
could or would oppose this disorder or who would dare punish these
slaves, because they belonged to the knights who were the judges in
Rome .” 75 This was one of the causes of the Slave War. I shall say only
one word; a profession that neither has nor can have any object but
gain, a profession that was always asking and of whom nothing was
asked, an insidious and inexorable profession which impoverished
wealth and even poverty, should not have been giving judgments in
Rome.

74 Fragment of [Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca kistorica ] bk. 34 [34/35-2.32, 29-30), in the
Extracts of Virtues and Vices.

75 “They [the slaves] belonged to the ones who did the judging in Rome, and it was from
among the Equestrian order that lots were cast to choose judges on the cases involving
praetors and proconsuls, who, after having administered a province, were called to trial”
[L.]. [Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca kistorica 34/35.2.32, 30, 31 (3).]

CHAPTER 19

On the government of the Roman provinces

The three powers were distributed in the town in this way, but it was far
from being the same in the provinces. Liberty was at the center and
tyranny at the extremities.

At the time when Rome dominated only Italy, the peoples were
governed as confederates; the laws of each republic were followed. But,
when it carried its conquests further, when the senate had no direct
view of the provinces, when the magistrates in Rome could no longer
govern the empire, then praetors and proconsuls had to be sent. From
then on, there was no longer harmony between the three powers. The
power of those who were sent brought together that of all the Roman
magistrates (what am I saying?):* even that of the senate, even that of

* Translator’s parentheses.

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Political liberty and the constitution

the people ! 76 These were despotic magistrates, quite suitable for the
far-distant places to which they were sent. They exercised the three
powers; they were, if I dare use this term, the pashas of the republic.

We have said elsewhere 77 that by the nature of things in a republic
the same citizens had civil and military employments. The result is that
a conquering republic can scarcely extend its government and control
the conquered state in accordance with the form of its constitution.
Indeed, since the magistrate it sends to govern has the executive power
over both civil and military business, he must also have legislative
power, for who else would make the laws? He must also have the power
of judging, for who would judge independently of him? Therefore, the
governor sent by a republic must have the three powers, as he had in the
Roman provinces.

A monarchy can more easily extend its government, because some of
the officers it sends to the provinces have executive power in matters of
civil business and others, executive power in matters of military
business, which does not bring about despotism.

That a Roman citizen could be judged only by the people was a
privilege of great consequence for him. Otherwise he would have been
subjected to the arbitrary power of a proconsul or a propraetor in the
provinces. The town did not feel the tyranny, which was exercised only
over the subject nations.

Thus, in the Roman world, as in Lacedaemonia, those who were free
were exceedingly free, and those who were slaves were exceedingly
enslaved.

While the citizens paid taxes, they were levied with a very great
fairness. The levy was in accord with the establishment of Servius
Tullius, who had distributed all the citizens into six classes in the order
of their wealth and had set their share of the impost in proportion to the
share each one had in the government. The result was that some
tolerated the high tax because of their great influence, and that others
consoled themselves for their small influence with their low tax.

There was another remarkable thing: it is that, since the division of
Servius Tullius by classes was the fundamental principle of the
constitution, so to speak, it happened that fairness in levying taxes
derived from the fundamental principle of this government and could
be removed only when it was.

76 They gave their edicts upon entering the provinces.

77 Above, in bk. 5, chap. 19. See also bks. 2 , 3, 4, and 5.

Part 2

But while Rome paid taxes painlessly or paid none at all , 78 the
provinces were ravaged by the knights, who were the tax-collectors for
the republic. We have spoken of their harassments, and all history is
full of them.

“All Asia awaits me as its liberator,” said Mithridates , 79 “the pillages
of the pronconsuls , 80 the exactions' of the men of public business/ and
the calumny of their judgments 81 have aroused such great hatred for
the Romans.”

This is why the force of the provinces added nothing to the force of
the republic and, on the contrary, only weakened it. This is why the
provinces regarded the loss of liberty in Rome as the period of the
establishment of their own.

78 After the conquest of Macedonia, the taxing ceased in Rome.

79 Harangue taken from Trogus Pompeius and related by Justin [ Epitoma historiarum
Philippicarum ], bk. 38 [38.7.8].

80 See [Cicero] The Orations against Verres [the entire case],

81 It is known that it was the tribunal of Varus that made the Germans rebel [see bk. 19, n. 1 ].

'executions in text.

igens d’affaires are not strictly “businessmen” here. Affaires usually means “public
business.”

CHAPTER 20

End of this book

I should like to seek out in all the moderate governments we know the
distribution of the three powers and calculate thereupon the degrees of
liberty each one of them can enjoy. But one must not always so exhaust
a subject that one leaves nothing for the reader to do. It is not a question
of making him read but of making him think.

186

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BOOK 12

On the laws that form
political liberty in relation
to the citizen

CHAPTER I

The idea of this book

It is not enough to treat political liberty in its relation to the constitu-
tion; it must be shown in its relation to the citizen.

I have said that, in the former instance, liberty is formed by a certain
distribution of the three powers, but in the latter it must be considered
with a different idea in view. It consists in security or in one’s opinion of
one’s security.

It can happen that the constitution is free and that the citizen is not.
The citizen can be free and the constitution not. In these instances, the
constitution will be free by right and not in fact; the citizen will be free
in fact and not by right.

Only the disposition of the laws, and especially of the fundamental
laws, forms liberty in its relation to the constitution. But, in the relation
to the citizen, mores, manners, and received examples can give rise to it
and certain civil laws can favor it, as we shall see in the present book.

Further, as in most states liberty is more hampered, countered, or
beaten down than is required by their constitutions, it is well to speak of
the particular laws that, in each constitution, can aid or run counter to
the principle of the liberty of which each government can admit.

187

Part 2

CHAPTER 2

On the liberty of the citizen

Philosophical liberty consists in the exercise of one’s will or, at least (if
all systems must be mentioned), in one’s opinion that one exerts one’s
will. Political liberty consists in security or, at least, in the opinion one
has of one’s security.

This security is never more attacked than by public or private
accusations. Therefore, the citizen’s liberty depends principally on the
goodness of the criminal laws.

Criminal laws were not perfected all at once. In the very places one
most sought liberty, one did not always find it. Aristotle' tells us that at
Cumae, the accuser’s relatives could be witnesses. Under the Roman
kings, the law was so imperfect that Servius Tullius pronounced
sentence against the children of Ancus Martius, accused of having
assassinated his father-in-law, the king . 2 Under the first kings of the
Franks, Clotaire made a law 3 that an accused man could not be
condemned without being heard, which proves that there was an
opposite practice in some particular case or among some barbarian
people. It was Charondas who introduced judgments against false
testimonies . 4 When the innocence of the citizens is not secure, neither
is liberty.

The knowledge already acquired in some countries and yet to be
acquired in others, concerning the surest rules one can observe in
criminal judgments, is of more concern to mankind than anything else
in the world.

Liberty can be founded only on the practice of this knowledge, and in
a state that had the best possible laws in regard to it, a man against
whom proceedings had been brought and who was to be hung the next
day would be freer than is a pasha in Turkey.

'[Aristotle] Pol., bk. 2 [126931-126933].

2 Tarquinius Priscus. See Dion. Hal. \Ant. Rom.], bk. 4 [4.5.3].

3 In the year 560 [ CRF 8.3].

4 Aristotle, Pol., bk. 2, chap. 12 [i247b5-8]. He gave his laws at Thurium in the 84th
Olympiad (444 b.c.].

188

Political liberty and the citizen

chapter 3

Continuation of the same subject

The laws that send a man to his death on the deposition of a single
witness are fatal to liberty. Reason requires two, because a witness who
affirms and an accused who denies produce a division, and there must
be a third for a decision.

The Greeks 5 and the Romans 6 required one additional voice to
condemn. Our French laws require two. The Greeks claimed that their
usage had been established by the gods , 7 but ours was.

5 See [Aelius] Aristides, Oratio inMinervam [Athena, 37(2). 17].

6 Dion. Hal. \Ant. Rom.\., bk. 7 [7.64.6], on the judgment of Coriolanus.

7 Minervae calculus', vote of Minerva.

CHAPTER 4

That liberty is favored by the nature of penalties,
and by their proportion

It is the triumph of liberty when criminal laws draw each penalty from
the particular nature of the crime. All arbitrariness ends; the penalty
does not ensue from the legislator’s capriciousness but from the nature
of the thing, and man does not do violence to man.

There are four sorts of crimes. Those of the first kind run counter to
religion; those of the second, to mores; those of the third, to tranquility;
those of the fourth, to the security of the citizens. The penalties
inflicted should derive from the nature of each of these kinds.

I include in the class of crimes concerning religion only those that
attack it directly, such as all cases of simple sacrilege. For crimes of
disturbing the exercise of religion are of the nature of those that run
counter to the tranquility or the security of the citizens and should be
shifted to these classes.

In order for the penalty against simple sacrilege to be drawn from the
nature 8 of the thing, it should consist in the deprivation of all the

8 St. Louis made such exaggerated laws against those who swore that the Pope felt obliged
to caution him about it. This prince moderated his zeal and softened his laws. See his

189

advantages given by religion: expulsion from the temples; deprivation
of the society of the faithful for a time or forever; shunning the presence
of the sacrilegious; execration, detestation, and exorcism.

In the things that disturb the tranquility or security of the state,
hidden actions are a concern" of human justice. But in those that
wound the divinity, where there is no public action, there is no criminal
matter; it is all between the man and god who knows the measure and
the time of his vengeance. For if the magistrate, confusing things, even
searches out hidden sacrilege, he brings an inquisition to a kind of
action where it is not necessary; he destroys the liberty of citizens by
arming against them the zeal of both timid and brash consciences.

The ill came from the idea that the divinity must be avenged. But one
must make divinity honored, and one must never avenge it. Indeed, if
one were guided by the latter idea, where would punishments end? If
men’s laws are to avenge an infinite being, they will be ruled by his
infinity and not by the weakness, ignorance, and caprice of human
nature.

An historian of Provence 9 reports a fact that paints very clearly for us
what this idea of avenging the divinity can produce in weak spirits. A
Jew, accused of having blasphemed the Holy Virgin, was condemned to
be flayed. Masked knights with knives in their hands mounted the
scaffold and drove away the executioner in order to avenge the honor of
the Holy Virgin themselves ... I certainly do not want to anticipate the
reader’s reflections.

The second class is of crimes against the mores: these are the
violation of public or individual continence, that is, of the police
concerning how one should enjoy the pleasures associated with the use
of one’s senses and with corporal union. The penalties for these crimes
should also be drawn from the nature of the thing. Deprivation of the
advantages that society has attached to the purity of mores, fines,
shame, the constraint to hide oneself, public infamy, and expulsion
from the town and from society; finally, all the penalties within the
correctional jurisdiction suffice to repress the temerity of the two sexes.

Ordinances. [Recueil general des anciennes lois franqaises. Capetiens, 216.2; see also 218.1; 1,
341-342,346].

9 Father Bougerel.

“ ressort . We usually translate ressort as “spring.” See also note f , bk. 19.

Political liberty and the citizen

Indeed, these things are founded less on wickedness than on forgetting
or despising oneself.

Here it is a question only of crimes that involve mores alone, not of
those that also run counter to public security, such as kidnapping and
rape, which are of the fourth kind.

The crimes of the third class are those that run counter to the
citizens’ tranquility, and the penalties for them should be drawn from
the nature of the thing and relate to that tranquility, such as depriva-
tion, exile, corrections, and other penalties that restore men’s troubled
spirits and return them to the established order.

I restrict crimes against tranquility to the things that are a simple
breach of police; the ones that, while disturbing tranquility, attack
security at the same time, should be put in the fourth class.

The penalties for these last crimes are what are called punishments/
They are a kind of retaliation, which causes the society to refuse to give
security to a citizen who has deprived or has wanted to deprive another
of it. This penalty is derived from the nature of the thing and is drawn
from reason and from the sources of good and evil. A citizen deserves
death when he has violated security so far as to take or to attempt to take
a life. The death penalty is the remedy, as it were, for a sick society.
When one violates security with respect to goods there can be reasons
for the penalty to be capital; but it would perhaps be preferable, and it
would be more natural, if the penalty for crimes committed against the
security of goods were punished by the loss of goods. And that ought to
be so, if fortunes were common or equal; but as those who have no
goods more readily attack the goods of others, the corporal penalty has
had to replace the pecuniary penalty.

All that I say is drawn from nature and is quite favorable to the
citizen’s liberty.

b petnes is translated “penalties,” and supplier, “punishments.”

Part 2

CHAPTER 5

On certain accusations in particular need of
moderation and prudence

Important maxim: one must be very circumspect in the pursuit of magic
and of heresy. Accusation of these two crimes can offend liberty in the
extreme and be the source of infinite tyrannies if the legislator does not
know how to limit it. For, as it does not bear directly on the actions of a
citizen, but rather on the idea one has of his character, the accusation
becomes dangerous in proportion to the people’s ignorance, and from
that time, a citizen is always in danger because the best conduct in the
world, the purest morality, and the practice of all one’s duties do not
guarantee one from being suspected of these crimes.

Under Manuel Comnenus, the protestator 10 was accused of conspir-
ing against the emperor and of using to this end certain secrets that
made men invisible. It is said, in the Life of this emperor , 11 that Aaron
was caught reading a book of Solomon, and that by reading it legions of
demons would appear. Now, by supposing a power in magic that can
arm hell and by starting from this, he whom one calls a magician is
considered the man in the world most likely to disturb and overthrow
society, and one is drawn to punish him immeasurably.

Indignation grows when one includes in magic the power to destroy
religion. The history of Constantinople 12 tells us that, when a bishop
had the revelation that a miracle had ceased because of the magic of a
certain individual, that person and his son were condemned to death.
On how many prodigious things did this crime not depend? That it
should not be rare for there to be revelations; that this bishop had had
one; that it was true; that there had been a miracle; that this miracle had
ceased; that there is magic; that magic can overturn religion; that this
individual was a magician; finally, that he had done this act of magic.

The emperor Theodore Lascaris attributed his illness to magic.
Those who were accused of it had no other recourse but to handle a hot
iron without burning themselves. It would have been a good thing,

l0 Nicetas Acominatus [Historia], DeManuele Commeno, bk. 4 [4.7; pp. 146-147; 1975 edn;
190-192, Bekker].

"Nicetas Acominatus [Historia], De Manuele Commeno, bk. 4 [4.7; pp. 146-147; 1975 edn.;
190-192, Bekker],

l2 [Simocattaj Theophylactus, Historiarum , chap. 1 1 [1.11; pp. 53-57, Bekker edn].

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Political liberty and the citizen

among these Greeks, to be a magician in order to vindicate oneself of
the accusation of magic. Such was the excess of their ignorance that, to
the most dubious crime in the world, they joined the most dubious
proofs.

Under the reign of Philip the Tall, the Jews were run out of France,
having been accused of allowing lepers to pollute the wells. This absurd
accusation certainly should cast doubt on all accusations founded on
public hatred.

I have not said here that heresy must not be punished; I say that one
must be very circumspect in punishing it.

CHAPTER 6

On the crime against nature

Please god that I may not diminish the horror that one has for a crime
that religion, morality, and policy condemn in turn. It would have to be
proscribed if it did no more than give to one sex the weaknesses of the
other and prepare for an infamous old age by a shameful youth. What I
shall say will leave it all of its stigma and will bear only on the tyranny
that can take an unfair advantage of even the horror in which it should
be held.

As it is in the nature of this crime to be hidden, legislators have often
punished it on the deposition of a child. This opened wide the door to
calumny. “Justinian,” says Procopius , 13 “published a law against this
crime; he made inquiries about those who were guilty of it, not only
after the law was made but before. The deposition of a witness,
sometimes a child, sometimes a slave, sufficed, especially against the
rich and those who were of the faction of the Greens .”

It is singular that among ourselves three crimes, magic, heresy, and
the crime against nature, of which it can be proved that the first does
not exist, that the second is susceptible to infinite distinctions, inter-
pretations and limitations, and that the third is often hidden, were all
three punished by the penalty of burning.

I shall assert that the crime against nature will not make much
progress in a society unless the people are also inclined to it by some

13 [Procopius] Anecdota sive Historia arcana [ 19. 1 1 ].

193

Part 2

custom, as among the Greeks, where the young people performed all
their exercises naked, as among ourselves where education at home is
no longer the usage, as among the Asians where some individuals have
a large number of wives whom they scorn while others can have none.
Do not clear the way for this crime, let it be proscribed by an exact
police, as are all the violations of mores, and one will immediately see
nature either defend her rights or take them back. Gentle, pleasing,
charming, nature has scattered pleasures with a liberal hand; and by
overwhelming us with delights, she prepares us with our children
through whom we are bom again, as it were, for satisfactions greater
even than those delights.

CHAPTER 7

On the crime of high treason

The laws of China decide that whoever lacks respect for the emperor
should be punished by death. As they do not define what lack of respect
is, anything can furnish a pretext for taking the life of whomever one
wants and for exterminating whatever family one wants.

Two persons charged with writing the court gazette noted some
circumstances about a deed which were found not to be true, and, as
lying in a court gazette was said to show lack of respect for the court,
they were put to death . 14 When a prince of the blood inadvertently
placed a note on a day-book signed with the red paintbrush of the
emperor, it was decided that he had shown a lack of respect for the
emperor, which brought against this family one of the most terrible
persecutions of which history has ever spoken. ls

Vagueness in the crime of high treason is enough to make govern-
ment degenerate into despotism. I shall treat the subject at length in the
Book “On the composition of the laws/*

,4 Father (Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de I’Empire de la Chine , “De la forme du
gouvemement”], vol. i, p. 43 [2.50 H; 2.43 P; 2.71 L).

15 Letters of Father Parennin in Lettres edifiantes et curieuses [Peking, September 26,i727;i9,
156-158; 1729 edn].

f Book 29.

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Political liberty and the citizen

chapter 8

On the wrong application of the name of crime
of sacrilege and high treason

It is also a violent abuse to give the name of crime of high treason to an
action which is not one. A law of the emperors 16 pursued as sacrilegious
those who called the prince’s judgment into question and doubted the
merit of those he had chosen for certain employments . 17 The cabinet
and the favorites established this crime. Another law declared that
those who made an attempt on the prince’s ministers and officers were
guilty of the crime of treason, as if they had made an attempt on the
prince himself . 18 We owe this law to two princes 19 whose weakness is
famous in history, two princes who were led by their ministers as flocks
are led by shepherds, two princes, slaves in the palace, children in the
council, strangers in the armies, who preserved the empire only
because they gave it away every day. Several of these favorites con-
spired against their emperors. They did more: they conspired against
the empire, they summoned the barbarians, and when one wanted to
check them, the state was so weak that it had to violate their law and run
the risk of committing the crime of treason in order to punish them.

Yet the Judge- Advocate for M. de Cinq-Mars 20 relied upon this law
when, wanting to prove the latter guilty of the crime of treason for
attempting to dismiss Cardinal Richelieu from matters of public
business, he said, “By the constitutions of the emperors the crime
touching the person of the prince’s ministers is counted of the same
weight as one affecting the prince’s person. A minister serves both his
prince and his state; if he is removed, it is as if the former were deprived
of an arm 21 and the latter of a part of its power.” If servitude herself
arrived on earth, she would not speak otherwise.

16 Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius. It is the third one of the Code [Corpus Juris Civilis,
Code 9.29.2(3)]; de crimine sacrilegii.

17 “It is the equivalent of sacrilege to doubt whether he whom the Emperor has chosen shall
be worthy” [L.]. Ibid. [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 9.29.2(3); de crimine sacrilegii]. This law
was a model for Roger’s law in the Institutions of Naples, tit. 4 [Liber Augustalis or The
Constitutions of Melfi, 1231; 1.4].

l8 Law 5 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 9.8.5]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

19 Arcadius and Honorius.

20 [Claude de Bourdeille, Comte de] Montresor, Memoirs, vol. 1 [1, 238-239; 1723 edn].

21 “For they themselves are a part of our body” [L.]. Same law in the Code [Corpus Juris
Civilis, Code 9.8.5]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

195

Part 2

Another law of Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius 22 declares
counterfeiters guilty of the crime of high treason. But does that not
confuse ideas about things? Does not giving the name of high treason to
another crime diminish the horror of the crime of high treason?

22 It is Law 9 in the Codex Theodosianus ; de falsa moneta [9.2 1 .9].

CHAPTER 9

Continuation of the same subject

When Paulinus sent word to the Emperor Alexander that “he was
preparing to pursue as a traitor a judge who had pronounced against his
orders,” the emperor answered him that, “in a century like this,
indirect crimes of high treason had no place .” 23
When Faustinianus wrote to the same emperor that, having sworn on
the life of the prince that he would never pardon his slave, he was
obliged to keep his anger alive in order not to make himself guilty of the
crime of high treason, the emperor answered him, “Your terror has
been empty 24 and you do not know my maxims.”

A senatus-consult 25 ordered that anyone who had melted down the
rejected statues of the emperor would not be at all guilty of high
treason. The emperors Severus and Antoninus wrote to Pontius 26 that
one who sold unconsecrated statues of the emperor would not fall
under the crime of high treason. The same emperors wrote to Julius
Cassianus that one who chanced to throw a rock at a statue of the
emperor should not be pursued as a traitor . 27 The Julian law required
these sorts of modifications, for it had rendered guilty of treason not
only those who melted down the statues of the emperors but those who
committed some similar action , 28 making this crime arbitrary. Once

23 “In my generation, the accusation of high treason for a variety of causes shall cease” [L.].
Law 1, Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 9.8.1]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

24 “You conceive my bent of mind with unsuitable anxiety” [L.]. [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code
9.8.2]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

25 See Law 4, para. 1, Digest [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 48.4.4.1]; ad legem Juliam
maiestatis.

26 See Law 5, para. 1, ibid. [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 48.4.5.2; ad legem Juliam maiestatis],

27 Ibid., para. 1 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 48.4.5.1; ad legem Juliam maiestatis].

28 “Those who might commit some similar thing or another” [L.]. [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest
48.4.6.1]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis, Law 6.

196

Political liberty and the citizen

many crimes of high treason had been established, one necessarily had
to distinguish among these crimes. Thus the jurist Ulpian, after saying
that the accusation of the crime of high treason did not cease on the
death of the guilty parties, added that this did not extend to all 29 the
crimes of high treason as established by the Julian law, but only to the
one that included an attempt on the empire or on the emperor’s life.

29 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 48.4.1 1]; ad legem Juliatn maiestatis, in the last law.

CHAPTER IO

Continuation of the same subject

A law of England, passed under Henry VIII, declared that all those who
predicted the king’s death were guilty of high treason. This law was
very vague. Despotism is so terrible that it even turns against those who
exercise it. In the last illness of this king, the doctors never dared to say
that he was in danger, and no doubt they acted accordingly . 30

30 Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England [pt. i,bk.3; 1547; 1,
548; 1969 edn].

CHAPTER II

On thoughts

A certain Marsyas dreamed he cut the throat of Dionysius . 31 Dionysius
had him put to death, saying that Marsyas would not have dreamed it at
night if he had not thought it during the day. This was a great tyranny;
for, even if he had thought it, he had not attempted it . 32 Laws are
charged with punishing only external actions.

31 Plutarch [Vit.], Dion [9.5].

32 Thought must be joined to some sort of action.

197

Part 2

CHAPTER 12

On indiscreet speech

Nothing makes the crime of high treason more arbitrary than when
indiscreet speech becomes its material. Discourse is so subject to
interpretation, there is so much difference between indiscretion and
malice and so little in the expressions they use, that the law can scarcely
subject speech to a capital penalty, unless it declares explicitly which
speech is subject to it . 33

Speech does not form a corpus delicti : it remains only an idea. Most
frequently it has no meaning in itself but rather in the tone in which it is
spoken. Often when repeating the same words, one does not express
the same meaning; the meaning depends on the link the words have
with other things. Silence sometimes expresses more than any speech.
Nothing is so equivocal. How, then, can one make speech a crime of
high treason? Wherever this law is established, not only is there no
longer liberty, there is not even its shadow.

In the manifesto of the late Czarina against the family Olguruki , 34
one prince of this family is condemned to death for speaking indecently
of her person and another for interpreting spitefully her wise arrange-
ments for the empire and for offending her sacred person by disre-
spectful speech.

I do not intend to diminish the indignation one should have against
those who want to stigmatize the glory of their prince, but I do say that if
one wants to moderate despotism, punishing with a simple correction
will suit these occasions better than an accusation of high treason,
which is always terrible, even to the innocent . 35

Actionable acts are not an everyday occurrence; they may be
observed by many people: a false accusation over facts can easily be
clarified. The words that are joined to an act take on the nature of that
action. Thus a man who goes into the public square to exhort the
subjects to revolt becomes guilty of high treason, because the speech is

33 “It should not be punished as a crime unless it be set down in the letter of the law or
established by examples in the law” [L ], says Moestinus in Law 7, para. 3 of the Digest
[Corpus Juris Civilis , Digest 48.4.7.3I; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

34 In 1740.

35 “Itis in noway easy to interpret the deceits of language” [L.], Modestinus, in Law 7, para.
3 of the Digest [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 48.4.7.3]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

198

Political liberty and the citizen

joined to the act and participates in it. It is not speech that is punished
but an act committed in which speech is used. Speech becomes
criminal only when it prepares, when it accompanies, or when it follows
a criminal act. Everything is turned upside down if speech is made a
capital crime instead of being regarded as the sign of a capital crime.

The emperors Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius wrote to Ruf-
finus, the praetorian prefect: “If someone speaks ill of our person or
our government, we do not want to punish him ; 36 if he has spoken
frivolously, he must be scorned; if it is madness, he must be pitied; if it
is an insult, he must be pardoned. Thus, looking at the thing as a whole,
you will inform us of it so that we may judge speeches by the persons
and weigh carefully whether we should subject them to judgment or
ignore them.”

36 “If this should proceed from levity, it deserves contempt; if from insanity, it is most
deserving of pity; if with intent to injure, it ought to be pardoned” [L.]; a single law in the
Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 9.7.1]; si quis imperatori maledixerit.

CHAPTER 13

On writings

Writings contain something more permanent than speech, but when
they do not prepare the way for high treason, they are not material to
the crime of high treason.

Nevertheless Augustus and Tiberius appended to writings the
penalty for this crime : 37 Augustus, when certain things were written
against illustrious men and women; Tiberius, because of those he
believed written against himself. Nothing was more fatal to Roman
liberty. Cremutius Cordus was accused because in his annals he had
called Cassius the last of the Romans . 38

Satirical writings are scarcely known in despotic states, where
dejection on the one hand and ignorance on the other produce neither
the talent nor the will to write them. In democracy, they are not
prevented, for the very reason that they are prohibited in the govem-

37 Tacitus ,Annales, bk. 1 [1.72.3-4]. That continued under the subsequent reigns. See the
first law of the Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 9.36.2]; de famosis libellis.

38 Idem, bk. 4 [Tacitus, Anrnles, 4.34].

199

Part 2

ment of one alone. As they are usually composed against powerful
people, they flatter the spitefulness of the people who govern in a
democracy. In a monarchy, they are prohibited, but they have been
made an object of police rather than of crime/ They can amuse the
general spitefulness, console malcontents, reduce envy of those in high
positions, give the people the patience to suffer, and make them laugh
about their sufferings.

Aristocracy is the government that most proscribes satirical works.
Magistrates there are little sovereigns who are not big enough to scorn
insults. If in monarchy some barb is thrown against the monarch, he is
so high that the barb does not reach him. An aristocratic lord is pierced
through and through. Thus, the decemvirs, who formed an aristocracy,
punished satirical writings with death . 39

39 The Law of Twelve Tables.

“'See 26.24 and note r for Montesquieu’s explanation of the meaning of police.

CHAPTER 14

The violation of modesty in punishing crimes

Rules of modesty are observed among almost all the nations of the
world; it would be absurd to violate them in punishing crimes, when its
purpose should always be the reestablishment of order.

Did those in the East, who exposed women to elephants trained for
an abominable kind of punishment, want to make the law violate the
law?

An old usage of the Romans forbade putting to death girls who were
not nubile. Tiberius hit upon the expedient of having them raped by the
executioner before sending them to their punishment ; 40 a crafty and
cruel tyrant, he destroyed mores in order to preserve customs.

When the Japanese magistracy had naked women exposed in public
squares and forced them to walk like beasts, it made modesty tremble ; 41

^Suetonius [Vitae duodecim Caesarum \ , Tiberius [61.5].

41 Recueildes voyages qui ont servi a I'establmement de la Compagniedes Indes,\o\. 5, pt. 2 [Reyer
Gysbertsz, “Histoire d’une persecution”; 5, 425; 1706 edn; 5, 496; 1725 edn].

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Political liberty and the citizen

but when it wanted to compel a mother. . . , when it wanted to compel
a son. . . , I cannot go on, it made even nature tremble . 42

42 Ibid.,p. 496 [Recueil des voyages qut ont servi a I'htablissemenl de la Compagnie des tndes Reyer
Gysbertsz, “Histoire d’une persecution”; 5, 425-426; 1706 edn; 5, 496; 1725 edn].

CHAPTER 15

On freeing the slave in order to accuse the master

Augustus established that the slaves of those who had conspired against
him would be sold to the public, so that they could make depositions
against their masters . 43 Nothing should be neglected that leads to the
discovery of a serious crime. Thus, in a state where there are slaves, it is
natural for them to be informers, but they cannot be witnesses.

Vindex denounced the conspiracy in support of Tarquin, but he was
not a witness against the children of Brutus. To give liberty to one who
had rendered such a great service to his homeland was just, but liberty
was not given to him so that he would render this service to his
homeland.

Thus, the emperor Tacitus ordered that slaves would not be
witnesses against their master, even in the crime of high treason , 44 a law
that was not put into Justinian’s compilation.

43 Cass. Dio [Hisioria Romana, 55.5.4], in Xiphilinus.

^Flavius Vopiscus [ Tacitus , 27.9.4].

CHAPTER l6

Slander in the crime of high treason

One must be just to the Caesars: they were not the first to imagine the
sad laws they made. It was Sulla 45 who taught them that slanderers
must not be punished. Soon one went so far as to reward them . 46

45 Sulla made a law of high treason, mentioned in Cicero’s orations, Pro Cluentio, art. 3 [24—
25, 94-97,99 ]; In Pisonem, art. 21 [21.50];/?! Verrem, 2nd art. 5 [2.1 .5.12-15], Epistolae ad
familiares, bk. 3, letter 2 [3.1 1.1—3], Caesar and Augustus inserted them in the Julian laws;
others added to them.

46 “The one who was the more distinguished informer would achieve more honors; it was as

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if he were a sacred personage” [L.]. Tacitus [Anndes 4.36]. [M. has cited the passage
incorrectly and is perhaps quoting from memory.]

CHAPTER 17

On revealing conspiracies

“If thy brother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or
thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying: ‘Let
us go to other gods , 5 thou shalt stone him; thine hand shall be first upon
him, and afterwards the hand of all the people.” This law of
Deuteronomy 47 cannot be a civil law among most of the peoples that we
know because it would open the door to all crimes.

The law in many states that ordered that, on penalty of death, one
reveal even the conspiracies in which one did not have a hand, is
scarcely less harsh. It is very suitable to restrict this law when it is
carried into a monarchical government.

It should be applied there in all its severity only to the crime of high
treason in the first degree. In such states it is very important not to
confuse the different degrees of this crime.

In Japan, where the laws upset all ideas of human reason, the failure
to reveal a crime is considered a crime in the most ordinary cases.

An account 48 tells us of two young ladies who were shut up in a box
studded with nails until they died; the one, for having had some
intrigue of gallantry; the other, for not having revealed it.

47 (Deuteronomy] chap. 13, w. 6-9 [M. quotes part of w. 6 and 9].

^Recueil des voyages qui ont servi a Vhtablissement de la Contpagnie des Indes, bk. 5, pt. 2,
p. 423 (“Voiage de Hagenaar aux Indes Orientales”; 5, 347; 1706 edn; 5, 423;
1725 edn].

CHAPTER l8

How dangerous it is in republics to punish excessively the
crime of high treason

When a republic has destroyed those who want to upset it, one must
hasten to put an end to vengeances, penalties, and even rewards.

One cannot inflict great punishments, and consequendy, make great

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Political liberty and the citizen

changes, without putting a great power into the hands of a few citizens.
It is better then, in this case, to pardon many than to punish many, to
exile few than to exile many, to leave men their goods than to multiply
confiscations. On the pretext of avenging the republic, one would
establish the tyranny of the avengers. It is not a question of destroying
the one who dominates but of destroying domination. One must return
as quickly as possible to the ordinary pace of government where the
laws protect all and are armed against no one.

The Greeks put no limits to the vengeances they wreaked on tyrants
or on those they suspected of being tyrants. They put children to
death , 49 sometimes five of the closest relatives . 50 They drove out an
infinite number of families. Their republics were shaken by this; exile
and the return of the exiled were always periods marking a change in
the constitution.

The Romans were wiser. When Cassius was condemned for aspiring
to tyranny, the question of putting his children to death was raised; his
children were not condemned to any penalty. “Those who wanted to
change this law at the end of the war with the Marsi and of the civil war
and to exclude from public offices the children of those proscribed by
Sulla, are certainly criminal,” says Dionysius of Halicarnassus . 51

In the wars of Marius and Sulla one sees the extent to which the souls
of the Romans had gradually become depraved. Things were so
lamentable that one believed they would not be seen again. But under
the Triumvirate one wanted to be more cruel and appear less so; the
sophisms that were used by cruelty are distressing to see. The formula
for proscriptions is found in Appian . 52 You would say that one has there
no other purpose than the good of the republic, so coolly does one
speak there, so many advantages does one show, so preferable to others
are the means one takes, so secure will the rich be, so tranquil will the
common people be, so much does one fear to put the citizen’s lives in
danger, so much does one want to pacify the soldiers, finally, so happy
will one be . 53

Rome was drowned in blood when Lepidus triumphed over Spain,

49 Dion. Ha l.,Ant. Rom., bk. 8 [8.80.3].

50 “The tyrant being killed, a magistrate shall slay his five closest relatives” [L.] [Cicero] De
inventione, bk. 2 [2.49.144].

51 [Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom.] bk. 8, p. 547 [8.80.2].

52 [Appian] The Civil Wars, bk. 4 [4.2.1 1].

53 “May it be fortunate and auspicious with you!” [L.] [Appian, The Civil Wars 4.2.1 1].

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and, by an unexampled absurdity, he ordered the people to rejoice over
the triumph, on penalty of proscription. 54

54 “Let this day be given over to feasts and sacrifices; those who do otherwise, let them be
among the proscribed” [L.]. [Appian, The Civil Wars 4.5.31].

CHAPTER 19

How the usage of liberty is suspended in a republic

There are, in the states where one sets the most store by liberty, laws
that violate it for a single person in order to keep it for all. Such are what
are called bills of attainder 55 in England. They are related to those laws
of Athens that were enacted against an individual 56 provided they were
made by the vote of six thousand citizens. They are related to those laws
made in Rome against individual citizens, which were called privi-
leges 57 They were made only in the great estates of the people. But,
however the people made them, Cicero wanted them abolished,
because the force of the law consists only in its being enacted for
everyone. 58 1 admit, however, that the usage of the freest peoples that
ever lived on earth makes me believe that there are cases where a veil
has to be drawn, for a moment, over liberty, as one hides the statues of
the gods.

55 It is not enough, in the tribunals of the kingdom, for there to be a piece of evidence that
convinces the judges; this piece of evidence must also be formal, that is, legal; and the law
requires there to be two witnesses against the accused; an additional piece of evidence
would not suffice. Now if a man, presumed guilty of what is called a high crime, had found
a way to keep the witnesses from appearing so that it was impossible to condemn him
under the law, one could bring a special bill of attainder against him, that is, make a
singular law concerning his person. One proceeds as with any other bill: it must pass the
two Houses and the king must give his consent, otherwise there is no bill, that is, no
judgment. The accused can have his advocates speak against the bill, and one can speak for
the bill in the House.

56 “A law concerning a single individual ought not to be proposed unless six thousand have
considered it” [L.] Andocides, Orationes, De mysteriis (87]. This is ostracism.

S7 “Proposed concerning private individuals” [L.]. Cicero, De legibus, bk. 3 [3.19.44-45].

58 “A decree and law over all” [L.]. Cicero, ibid. [De legibus 3.19.44].

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Political liberty and the citizen

CHAPTER 20

On laws favorable to the citizen ’s liberty in the republic

It often happens in popular states that accusations are made in public
and any man is permitted to indict whomever he wants. This has
brought about the establishment of laws proper to the defense of the
innocence of the citizens. In Athens, the accuser who did not get a fifth
of the votes for his side paid a fine of a thousand drachmas. Aeschines,
who had accused Ctesiphon, was condemned for this .' 9 In Rome, the
unjust accuser was branded with infamy , 60 and the letter “K” was
stamped on his forehead. Guard was kept on the accuser so that he
would not be in a position to corrupt the judges or witnesses . 61

I have already spoken of that Athenian and Roman law that permit-
ted the one indicted to go into exile before the judgment.

59 See [Flavius] Philostratus, Vitae sophistarum, Aeschines, bk. i [510, Olearius]. See also
Plutarch [Moralia. Vitae decern oratorum 84od-e] and Photius [Bibliotheca 6 1 , “Aeschines”;
20a 1 8-30].

60 By the Remnian law.

61 Plutarch [Moralia], De capienda ex inimicis utilitate [9id-e].

CHAPTER 21

On the cruelty of laws concerning debtors in a republic

One citizen has already gained a great superiority over another citizen
by lending silver that the latter had borrowed only to disburse and that,
in consequence, he no longer has. What will happen in a republic, if the
laws increase this servitude still more?

In Athens and in Rome , 62 it was at first permitted to sell debtors who
were not in a position to pay. Solon corrected this usage in Athens ; 63 he
ordered that no one would be obligated by his person for civil debts.
But the decemvirs 64 did not similarly reform the Roman usage, and
although they had Solon’s regulation before their eyes, they refused to

62 Many sold their children to pay their debts. Plutarch [Vit.], Solon [13.3].

63 Ibid. [Plutarch, Vit., Solon 15.3].

64 In history it appears that this usage was established among the Romans before the Law of
Twelve Tables. Livy, decade 1, bk. 2 [2.23-24].

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follow it. This is not the only place in the Law of Twelve Tables where
one sees that the design of the decemvirs ran counter to the spirit of
democracy.

The cruel laws concerning debtors often endangered the Roman
republic. A man covered with sores escaped from the house of his
creditor and appeared in the square. 65 The people were moved by this
spectacle. Other citizens left their prisons when their creditors no
longer dared hold them. Promises were made, but they were broken:
the people withdrew to the Mons Sacer. The people gained, instead of
the abrogation of these laws, a magistrate to defend them. One was
moving away from anarchy; one risked falling into tyranny. Manlius, in
order to make himself popular, was going to take from the hands of
their creditors the citizens who had been reduced to slavery. 66 One
prevailed against his designs, but the evil remained. Particular laws
facilitated payments by debtors, 67 and in Roman year 428 [328 B.c.],
the consuls proposed a law 68 that took away the creditors’ right to hold
debtors in servitude in their houses. 69 A usurer named Papirius had
wanted to corrupt the modesty of a young man named Publius whom he
kept in irons. The crime of Sextus gave Rome political liberty; that of
Papirius gave it civil liberty.

It was Rome’s fate that new crimes confirmed the liberty that old
crimes had procured for it. The attempt of Appius on Virginia revived
in the people the horror of tyrants inspired in them by Lucretia’s
misfortune. Thirty-seven years 70 after the crime of the infamous
Papirius, a similar crime 71 made the people withdraw to the Jani-
culum 72 and renewed the force of the law made for the security of
debtors.

65 Dion. Hal, Ant. Rom., bk. 6 [6.26].

^Plutarch [Vit.], Furius Camillus [36.3-4].

67 See below, bk. 22, chap. 22.

68 0 ne hundred and twenty years after the Law of Twelve Tables. “For the Roman
plebeians, this year was like another beginning of liberty because they ceased to be
enslaved for debts” [L.]. Livy, bk. 8 [8.28.1].

69 “The property of the debtors but not their bodies would be held liable” [L.]. Ibid. [Livy
8.28.9].

70 In Roman year 465 [289 b.c.].

71 That of Plautius, who attacked the modesty of Veturius. Valerius Maximus [Factorum et
dictorum memorabilium ], bk. 6, art. 9 [6. 1 .9]. One should not confuse these two events; they
are neither the same persons nor the same times.

72 See a fragment of Dion. Hal., in [Ant. Rom. 16.5 (9)], Extracts of Virtues and Vices ; Livy,
Epitome, bk. 1 1; andjohann Freinsheim [Supplementorum Livianorum], bk. 11 [11.25-26].

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Political liberty and the citizen

Subsequently, more creditors were pursued by debtors for violating
the laws made against usurers than debtors were pursued for not
having paid their debts.

CHAPTER 22

On things that attack liberty in a monarchy

The least useful thing in the world to the prince has often weakened
liberty in monarchies: the commissioners sometimes named to judge
an individual.

The prince has so little use for commissioners that it is not
worthwhile for him to change the order of things for their sake. It is
morally certain that he has more of the spirit of integrity and justice
than his commissioners, who always believe themselves sufficiendy
justified by orders, by a hidden interest of the state, by having been
chosen, and even by their fears.

Under Henry VIII, when a peer was tried, he was to be judged by
commissioners drawn from the House of Lords; with this method one
put to death all the peers one wanted.

CHAPTER 23

On spies in a monarchy

Must there be spies in a monarchy? It is not the ordinary practice of
good princes. When a man is faithful to the laws, he has satisfied what
he owes to the prince. He must at least have his house as an asylum and
be secure about the rest of his conduct. Spying would perhaps be
tolerable if it could be exercised by honest people, but the necessary
infamy of the person can make the thing be judged infamous. A prince
should act toward his subjects with candor, frankness, and trust. He
who has so many anxieties, suspicions, and fears, is an actor who plays
his role awkwardly. When he sees that in general the laws are enforced
and respected, he can judge himself secure. The general demeanor
speaks to him for the demeanor of all the individuals. Let him have no

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fear; he cannot believe how readily he is loved. Indeed, why would one
not love him? He is the source of almost all the good that is done, and
almost all punishing is the responsibility of the laws. He shows himself
to the people only with a serene countenance; his very glory is
communicated to us and his power sustains us. A proof that one loves
him is that one trusts him; and what a minister refuses, one always
imagines the prince would have granted. Even during public calami-
ties, one does not accuse his person; one complains that he is unaware
of them or that he is importuned by corrupt people: If only the prince
knew ! say the people. These words are a kind of invocation and a proof
of their trust in him.

CHAPTER 24

On anonymous letters

The Tartars are obliged to put their name on their arrows, so that the
hand from which they come can be known. When Philip of Macedonia
was wounded at the siege of a town, one found on the javelin, Aster gave
this mortal blow to Philip f If those who accuse a man did it with a view to
the public good, they would not accuse him before the prince, for he
can easily be prejudiced; instead they would go before the magistrates,
whose rules are fearsome only to slanderers. For if they do not want to
leave the laws between themselves and the accused, it proves that they
have cause to fear the laws, and the least penalty that might be inflicted
on these men is not to believe them. One can pay attention to them only
in cases that cannot tolerate the delays of ordinary justice and when it is
a question of the prince’s safety. In that instance, one can believe that
the accuser has made an effort that loosened his tongue and made him
talk. But in other cases one must say with the Emperor Constantius:
“We cannot suspect a man who has no accuser although he does not
lack enemies .” 74

73 Plutarch, Moralia, Parallela Gracca et Romana, vol. 2, p. 487 [3071! #8).

74 Law 6, Codex Theodosianus [9.34.6]; de famosis libellis.

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Political liberty and the citizen

chapter 25

On the manner of governing in monarchy

Royal authority is a great spring that should move easily and noiselessly.
The Chinese praise one of their emperors who governed, they say, like
the heavens, that is, by example.

There are cases when power should act to its full extent; there are
cases when it should act within its limits. An administration is sublime
if it is well aware what part of power, great or small, should be used in
various circumstances.

In our monarchies, all felicity lies in the people’s opinion of the
gentleness of the government. An unskillful minister always wants to
tell you that you are slaves. But, if that were so, he should seek to keep it
from being known. He can say or write nothing to you, except that the
prince is angry, that he is surprised, that he will restore order. In a
certain way, command is easy: the prince must encourage and the laws
must menace . 75

75 “Nerva [Nerva Traianus] eased the weight of empire.” Tacitus \Agricola 3].

CHAPTER 26

That, in a monarchy, the prince should be accessible

This will be much better felt by contrasts. “Czar Peter I,” says Lord
Perry , 76 “has made a new ordinance that forbids presenting him with a
request before presenting it twice to his officers. One can, in the case of
denial of justice, present it to him the third time, but if he who presents
it is wrong, he must lose his life. Since that time, no requests have been
addressed to the czar.”

76 {John Perry) The State of Russia under the Present Czar (Paris, 1717), p. 173 [pp 142-143;
1967 edn).

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CHAPTER 27

On the mores of the monarch

The mores of the prince contribute as much to liberty as do the laws;
like the laws, the prince can make beasts of men and men of beasts. If
he loves free souls, he will have subjects; if he loves common souls, he
will have slaves. Does he want to know the great art of ruling? Let him
bring honor and virtue close to him, let him call forth personal merit.
He can sometimes even cast his eyes toward the talented. Let him not
fear his rivals, who are called men of merit; he is their equal once he
loves them. Let him win the heart, but let him not capture the spirit. Let
him make himself popular. He should be flattered by the love of the
least of his subjects; they are all men. The people ask so little attention
that it is just to grant it to them; the infinite distance between the
sovereign and the people keeps them from disturbing him. Let him
yield to prayers but be firm against demands, and let him know that his
people benefit from his refusals as do his courtiers from his favors.

CHAPTER 28

On the regard monarchs owe their subjects

They must be extremely restrained in their banter. It flatters when it is
moderate because it provides the means of becoming familiar, but a
caustic banter is much less permissible to them than to the least of their
subjects because they are the only ones who always wound mortally.

Even less should they conspicuously insult one of their subjects; they
are established to pardon, to punish, never to insult.

When they insult their subjects, they treat them more cruelly than
the Turk or the Muscovite treats his. When the latter insult someone,
they humble and do not dishonor; but, as for monarchs, they both
humble and dishonor.

Such is the prejudice of those of the East that they consider an
affront by the prince to be a result of paternal goodness; and such is our
way of thinking that we join to the bitter feeling resulting from this
affront the despair of being unable to clear ourselves of it.

They should be charmed to have subjects whose honor is dearer to

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Political liberty and the citizen

them than life and is no less a motive for faithfulness than for courage.

One can recall misfortunes that have befallen princes as a result of
insulting their subjects: the vengeances of Chaerea, of the eunuch
Narses, and of the Count Julian; finally, of the Duchess of Montpen-
sier, who, enraged at Henry III for having revealed some one of her
secret failings, vexed him for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER 29

On civil laws appropriate for putting a little liberty in
despotic government

Though despotic government in its nature is everywhere the same, yet
circumstances, a religious opinion, a prejudice, received examples, a
mm of mind, manners, mores, can leave considerable differences
among them.

It is well for certain ideas to be established in them. Thus in China,
the prince is regarded as the father of the people, and, at the beginning
of the empire of the Arabs, the prince was their preacher . 77

It is suitable for there to be some sacred book that acts as a rule, like
the Koran for the Arabs, the books of Zoroaster for the Persians, the
Veda for the Indians, the classics for the Chinese. The religious code
replaces the civil code and fixes what is arbitrary.

It is not bad for judges to consult the ministers of religion in cases
that are unclear . 78 Thus in Turkey, the cadis question the mullahs.
And, if the case merits death, the particular judge, if there is one, may
also suitably seek the advice of the governor, so that the civil power and
the ecclesiastic power are further tempered by the political authority.

77 The caliphs.

78 [Ebulgazi Bahadir Han, Khan of Khorezm] Histoire genealogique des Tatars , pt. 3, p. 277, in
the remarks [Bentinck’s note, pt. 3, chap. 14; 1, 290; 1726 edn].

21 1

Part 2

CHAPTER 30

Continuation of the same subject

It is despotic rage that has established that the father’s disgrace would
involve the disgrace of children and wives. The latter are already
unfortunate without being criminal; and besides, the prince must leave
suppliants between the accused and himself to soften his wrath or
enlighten his justice.

In the Maldives , 79 it is a good custom for a lord who is disgraced to
pay daily court to the king until he is returned to favor; his presence
disarms the prince’s wrath.

There are despotic states 80 in which it is thought that speaking to a
prince on behalf of a disgraced man is to lack the respect due the
prince. These princes seem to make every effort to deprive themselves
of the virtue of mercy.

Arcadius and Honorius, in the law 81 of which I have spoken at
length , 82 declare that they will not pardon those who dare entreat them
on behalf of guilty men . 83 This law was very bad, for it is bad even in
despotism.

The Persian custom that permits anyone to leave the kingdom who
wants to, is very good; and though the opposite usage had its origin in
despotism, where subjects were regarded as slaves 84 and those who left
were regarded as fugitive slaves, nevertheless, the Persian practice is
very good in despotisms, where fear of the people’s fleeing or departing
with what they owe checks or moderates the persecution of pashas and
extortioners.

79 See Francois Pyrard [Voyages, pt. 1, chap. 8; 1, 89; 1887-1890 edn).

80 As today in Persia according to the report of [John] Chardin. This usage is quite old.
Procopius says [in The Persian Wars, “History of the Wars”; 1 .5.7-8], “Cabades was put
into the castle of oblivion; there is a law forbidding one to speak of those shut up there or
even to mention their names.”

81 Law 5 of the Code [Corpus Juris Chilis, Code 9. 8. 5.2]; ad legem Juliam maiestatis.

82 In chapter 8 of this book.

83 Frederick copied this law from the Constitutions of Naples, bk. 1 [Liber Augustalis or the
Constitutions of Melfi (1231], 1.4].

84 In monarchies, there is ordinarily a law prohibiting those who have public employments
from leaving the kingdom without the permission of the prince. This law must also be
established in republics. But in the ones with singular institutions, the prohibition must be
generalized so that foreign mores will not be brought in.

212

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BOOK 13

On the relations that the levy of taxes
and the size of public revenues
have with liberty

CHAPTER I

On the revenues of the state

The revenues of the state are a portion each citizen gives of his goods in
order to have the security or the comfortable enjoyment of the rest.

In order to fix these revenues well one must consider both the
necessities of the state and the necessities of the citizens. One must not
take from the real needs of the people for the imaginary needs of the
state.

Imaginary needs are the ones sought by the passions and weaknesses
of those who govern, the charm of an extraordinary project, the sick
envy of vainglory, and a certain impotence of spirit in the face of their
fancies. Often those who, with restless spirit, were at the head of public
business under a prince have thought that the needs of their small souls
were the needs of the state.

There is nothing that wisdom and prudence should regulate more
than the portion taken away from the subjects and the portion left to
them.

Public revenues must not be measured by what the people can give
but by what they should give, and if they are measured by what the
people can give, it must at least be by what they can always give.

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CHAPTER 2

That it is bad reasoning to say that large taxes
are good in themselves

In certain monarchies one has seen that small countries that were
exempt from taxes were as poverty-stricken as the places all around
them that were overwhelmed by taxes. The principal reason for this is
that a small, hemmed -in state cannot have industry, arts, or manufac-
turing because it is hampered in a thousand ways by the large state
which encloses it. The large surrounding state has industry, manufac-
turing, and the arts, and it makes regulations procuring all advantages
for itself. Therefore, the small state necessarily becomes poor, however
few imposts are levied there.

Yet it was concluded from the poverty of these little countries that
there must be heavy burdens" in order to make the people industrious.
One would have done better to conclude that there must be none. All
the wretched people from the surrounding area withdraw to these
places and do nothing; already discouraged by overwhelming work,
they make their whole felicity consist in idleness.

The effect of the wealth of a country is to fill all hearts with ambition;
the effect of poverty is to bring them to despair. Ambition is excited by
work; poverty is consoled by laziness.

Nature is just toward men. She rewards them for their pains; she
makes them hard workers because she attaches greater rewards to
greater work. But if an arbitrary power removes nature’s rewards, the
distaste for work recurs and inaction appears to be the only good.

“Montesquieu uses the term charges, “charges,” “burdens,” to cover a variety of ways a
government imposes on its subjects: posts, taxes, and services.

2X4

The levy of taxes and public revenues

chapter 3

On taxes in countries where part of the people
are slaves to the land

Slavery to the land* is sometimes established after a conquest. In this
case, the slave who cultivates the land should be the share-cropper of
the master. Only the sharing of loss and gain can reconcile those who
are destined to work with those who are destined to enjoyment.

h e$davage de la glebe. See 30.5, where Montesquieu speaks of “serfdom,” servitude de la
glebe (notes “ and bk. 30).

CHAPTER 4

On a republic in a like case

When a republic has reduced a nation to cultivating lands for it, one
should not tolerate the citizen’s increasing the tax of the slave. It was
not permitted in Lacedaemonia; it was thought that the Helots’ would
better cultivate the lands when they knew that their servitude would not
increase; it was believed that the masters would be better citizens when
they desired only what they were accustomed to having.

'Plutarch [Moralia, Apophthegmata Laconica, Instituta Laconica 41, 23gd-eJ.

CHAPTER 5

On a monarchy in a like case

In a monarchy, when the nobility has the lands cultivated for its profit
by the conquered people, again the ground-rent must not increase . 2
Moreover, it is well for the prince to be satisfied with his domain and
with military service. But, if the prince wants to levy taxes in silver on
the slaves of his nobility, the lord must stand warrant for the tax , 3 pay it

2 This is why Charlemagne made his fine institutions about it. See bk. 5 of the Capitularies,
art. 303 [MCff, LL. 11, pt. 2, Capitularia spuria, Benedicti capitularium, 1.303].

3 It is thus practiced in Germany.

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for the slaves, and collect it back from them; and if this rule is not
followed, the lord and those who levy the revenues for the prince, each
in his turn, will harass the slave and will, one after the other, collect
from him until he perishes from poverty or flees into the woods.

CHAPTER 6

On a despotic state in a like case

What I have just said is still more indispensable in the despotic state.
The lord, who can be stripped of his lands and his slaves at any
moment, is not inclined to preserve them.

Peter I, wanting to adopt the practice of Germany and levy his taxes
in silver, made a very wise regulation that is still observed in Russia.
The gentleman levies an assessment on the peasants and pays it to the
czar. If the number of the peasants decreases, he pays the same
amount; if the number increases, he pays no more; therefore, it is in his
interest not to harass his peasants.

CHAPTER 7

On taxes in countries where slavery to the land is not
established

In a state, when all the individuals are citizens and each one there
possesses by his domain that which the prince possesses by his empire,
imposts can be placed on persons, on lands, or on commodities, on two
of these, or on all three together.

In respect to an impost on persons, an unjust proportion would be
one that followed strictly the proportion of goods. In Athens, the
citizens were divided 4 into four classes. Those who received five
hundred measures of liquid or dry fruit from their goods paid one
talent to the public; those who received three hundred measures from
them, half a talent; those who had two hundred measures paid ten
minas, or a sixth of a talent; those of the fourth class gave nothing. The

4 [Julius] Pollux [ Onomasticon ], bk. 8, chap, io, art. 130 [8.10.130],

2l6

The levy of taxes and public revenues

assessment was just although it was not proportional; if it did not follow
the proportion of goods, it followed the proportion of needs. It was
judged that each one had an equal physical necessity, that this physical
necessity should not be assessed, that the useful came next, and that it
should be assessed, but at less than the superfluous, and that the size of
the assessment on the superfluous prevented superfluity.

In the assessment on lands, registers are made for the various classes
of lands. But it is very difficult to recognize these differences, and still
more difficult to find people without an interest in failing to recognize
them. Therefore, there are two kinds of injustice in this case: the
injustice of the man and the injustice of the thing itself. But if the
assessment is not excessive in general, if the people are left plenty for
necessities, the particular injustices will be as nothing. But if, on the
contrary, the people are left strictly with what they must have in order to
live, the least disproportion will be of the greatest consequence.

If some citizens do not pay enough, there is no great harm; their
plenty always reverts to the public; if some individuals pay too much,
their ruin turns against the public. If the state matches its fortune to
that of individuals, the plenty of the individuals will soon make its
fortune increase. Everything depends on the moment. Will the state
begin by impoverishing its subjects in order to enrich itself? Or will it
wait for its subjects to enrich it at their own pace? Will it have the first
advantage or the second? Will it begin by being rich or will it end by
being so?

Duties on commodities are the ones the least felt by the people,
because no formal request is made for them. They can be so wisely
managed that the people will be almost unaware that they pay them. To
do this, it is of great consequence that it be the one who sells the
commodity who pays the duty. He well knows that he is not paying for
himself; and the buyer, who ultimately pays it, confounds it with the
price. Some writers have said that Nero removed the duty of one-
twenty-fifth on slaves who were sold ; 5 yet he did no more than order
that the seller would pay it instead of the buyer: this regulation, which
left all the impost, appeared to have removed it.

There are two kingdoms in Europe where very high imposts have
been put on beverages: in one of them the brewer alone pays the duty;

5 “The tax on the sale of slaves was remitted, but this remission was more specious than real
because it was also ordered that the seller pay it; this simply increased the price for the
buyer because it was made part of the price” [L.]. Tacitus, Annates, bk. 13 [1 3.3 1 ].

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in the other, it is levied alike on all the subjects who drink. In the first,
no one feels the severity of the impost; in the second, it is regarded as
onerous: in the former, the citizen feels only his liberty in not paying; in
the latter, he feels only the necessity that obliges him to pay it.

Furthermore, in order that the citizen pay, his house must be
perpetually searched. Nothing is more contrary to liberty, and those
who establish these sorts of imposts have not the good fortune of having
discovered, in this regard, the best kind of administration.

chapter 8

How the illusion is preserved

In order to make the price of a thing and its duty become confused in
the head of the one who pays, there must be some relation between the
commodity and the impost, and one must not charge excessive duty on
a product of small value. There are countries where the duty is more
than seventeen times greater than the value of the commodity. In this
way the prince removes the illusion from his subjects; they see that they
are led in an unreasonable manner, and this makes them feel every bit
of their servitude.

Besides, for the prince to be able to levy a duty so disproportionate to
the value of the thing, he must sell the commodity himself and the
people must not be able to buy it elsewhere; this is subject to a thousand
drawbacks.

As fraud is very lucrative in this case, the natural penalty, the one
reason demands, which is confiscation of the commodity, becomes
incapable of checking it, especially because the commodity ordinarily
has a very low price. Therefore, one must have recourse to extravagant
penalties like those inflicted for the greatest crimes. This removes all
proportion in penalties. Men whom one could not consider wicked are
punished like scoundrels, which is the thing in the world most contrary
to the spirit of moderate government.

I add that the more opportunities a people are given to defraud the
tax-collector, the more the latter is enriched and the former are
impoverished. In order to check fraud, tax-collectors must be given
extraordinary means of harassment, and all is lost.

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chapter 9

On a bad sort of impost

We shall speak incidentally of an impost established in some states on
the various clauses of civil contracts. In order to protect oneself from
the tax-collector, one must have a vast knowledge, as these things are
subject to subde examinations. So, the tax-collector, the interpreter of
the prince’s regulations, exercises an arbitrary power over fortunes.
Experience has shown that an impost on the paper on which the
contract is to be written would be much better.

CHAPTER 10

That the size of taxes depends on the nature of the
government

Taxes should be vety light in despotic government. Otherwise, who
would want to take the trouble to cultivate the land? Moreover, how can
high taxes be paid in a government that does nothing to replace what
the subject has given?

Given the stunning power of the prince and the strange weakness of
the people, there must be no ambiguity about anything. Taxes should
be so easy to collect and so clearly established that they cannot be
increased or diminished by those who levy them. A portion of the fruits
of the earth, an assessment by head, a tax of some percent on
commodities are the only suitable ones.

It is well in despotic government for merchants to have a personal
passage of safe-conduct and for usage to make them respected;
otherwise, they would be too weak in discussions they might have with
the officers of the prince.

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CHAPTER II

On fiscal penalties

A peculiarity of fiscal penalties is that, contrary to general practice, they
are more severe in Europe than in Asia. In Europe, commodities,
sometimes even ships and vehicles, are confiscated; in Asia, one takes
neither the one nor the other. This is because in Europe the merchant
has judges who can protect him from oppression; in Asia, despotic
judges would themselves be the oppressors. What would the merchant
do against a pasha who had decided to confiscate his commodities?

This harassment defeats itself and one sees it constrained to be
somewhat gende. In Turkey, only one entry duty is levied; after that,
the whole country is open to merchants. False declarations result
neither in confiscation nor in increase of duties. In China, packages
that belong to people who are not merchants are not opened . 6 Fraud
among the Moguls is punished not by confiscation but by the doubling
of the duty. The Tartar princes 7 who live in Asian towns levy almost
nothing on the commodities that pass through. And, if in Japan the
crime of commercial fraud is a capital crime, it is because one has
reasons for prohibiting all communication with foreigners and because
fraud 8 there is an infringement of the laws made for the security of the
state rather than of the laws of commerce.

6 [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [. Description de VEmpire de la Chine, “De la police de la Chine”),
vol. 2, p. 37 [2, 67 H; 2, 57 P; 2, 97 L).

7 [Ebulgazi Bahadir Han, Khan of Khorezm] Histoire genealogique des Tatars, pt. 3, p. 290
[Bentinck’s note, pt. 3, chap. 16; 1, 290; 1726 edn].

8 As they wanted to have a commerce with foreigners without entering into communication
with them, they chose two nations: the Dutch for the commerce with Europe and the
Chinese for that with Asia. They keep factors and sailors in a kind of prison and hamper
them so much that they lose patience.

CHAPTER 12

The relation of the size of taxes to liberty

general rule: One can levy heavier taxes in proportion to the
liberty of the subjects and one is forced to moderate them insofar as
servitude increases. This has always been and will always be. It is a rule

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drawn from nature, which does not change; this rule is found in all
countries, in England, in Holland, and in all states of decreasing liberty
down to Turkey. Switzerland does not seem to conform to this because
no taxes are paid there, but the particular reason is known, and it even
confirms what I say. In those barren mountains, food is so dear and the
country so heavily populated that a Swiss pays four times more to
nature than a Turk pays to the sultan.

Dominant peoples such as the Athenians and the Romans can free
themselves from every impost because they reign over subject nations.
So they do not pay in proportion to their liberty; this is because, in this
regard, they are not a people but a monarch.

But the general rule still holds. In moderate states, there is a
compensation for heavy taxes; it is liberty. In despotic states , 9 there is
an equivalent for liberty; it is the modest taxes.

In certain European monarchies there are provinces 10 that, by the
nature of their political government, are in a better position than others.
One always imagines that they do not pay enough, because as a result of
the goodness of their government, they could pay even more; and it
keeps coming to mind to take away the very government that produces
the good that is communicated, that spreads afar, and that it would be
much better to enjoy.

9 In Russia, taxes are of medium size; they have been increased since despotism has become
more moderate. See [Ebulgazi Bahadir Han, Khan of Khorezm] Histoire genealogique des
Tatars , pt. 2 [Bentinck’s note, pt. 9, chap. 9, “Du regne d’Arap-Mohamet-Chan”; 2, 726;
1726 edn],

10 The pays d'Etats.

CHAPTER 13

In which government taxes are susceptible of increase

Taxes can be increased in most republics because the citizen, who
believes he is paying to himself, has the will to pay them and ordinarily
has the power to do so as a result of the nature of the government.

In monarchy, taxes can be increased because the moderation of the
government can procure wealth there; it is a kind of reward to the
prince for his respect of the laws.

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In the despotic state they cannot be increased because extreme
servitude cannot be increased.

CHAPTER 14

That the nature of taxes is relative to the government

An impost by head is more natural to servitude; the impost on
commodities is more natural to liberty because it relates less directly to
the person/

It is natural in despotic government for the prince not to pay his
militia or the people in his court in silver but to distribute lands to them,
and there are, consequently, few taxes levied. For if the prince pays in
silver, the most natural tax he can levy is a tax by head. This tax can only
be very modest, for, as one cannot make various classes of wealthy tax-
payers because of the abuses that would result, given the injustice and
the violence of the government, one must necessarily be ruled by the
rates that the poorest can pay.

The tax natural to moderate government is the impost on commodi-
ties. This impost, really paid by the buyers although advanced by the
merchant, is a loan the merchant makes to the buyer; thus, the trader
must be regarded as both the general debtor of the state and the
creditor of all the individuals. He advances to the state the duty the
buyer will eventually pay, and he has paid, for the buyer, the duty he has
paid for the commodity. Therefore, it is felt that the more moderate the
government, the more the spirit of liberty reigns, and the more secure
fortunes are, the easier it is for the merchant to advance substantial
duties to the state and to lend them to individuals. In England, a
merchant really lends the state fifty to sixty pounds sterling for every
barrel of wine he receives. What merchant would dare to do this kind of
thing in a country governed like Turkey? And, if he dared to do it, how
would he be able to, with a suspect, uncertain, and ruined fortune?

‘It is clear from this sentence that an “impost,” impol, is a particular “tax,” tribute.

These may be based on an “assessment,” taxe.

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chapter 15

The abuse of liberty

These great advantages of liberty have caused the abuse of liberty itself.
Because moderate government has produced remarkable results, this
moderation has been abandoned; because large taxes have been raised,
one has wanted to raise excessive ones; and, disregarding the hand of
liberty that gave this present, one has turned to servitude, which refuses
everything.

Liberty has produced excessive taxes, but the effect of these excess-
ive taxes is to produce servitude in their turn, and the effect of servitude
is to produce a decrease in taxes.

The monarchs of Asia make edicts about almost nothing except the
exempting each year of some province in their empire ; 11 such manifes-
tations of their will are kindnesses. But in Europe, the edicts of the
princes cause grief even before they are seen because they always speak
of their needs and never of ours.

From an inexcusable lisdessness that the ministers in these countries
get from their government and often from their climate, the people gain
the advantage that they are not constandy overwhelmed with new
demands. Expenditures there do not increase because there are no new
projects and if by chance there are some, they are projects whose end
can be seen and not projects just beginning. Those who govern the
state do not harry it because they do not endlessly harry themselves.
But for us, it is impossible to have regularity in our finances because we
always know that we shall do something, and never what we shall do.

Among ourselves, we no longer consider a great minister to be one
who dispenses public revenues wisely, but rather one who is an
industrious man and who finds what are called expedients.

’’This is the usage of the emperors of China.

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CHAPTER 16

On the conquests of the Mohammedans

These excessive taxes 12 accounted for the strange ease with which the
Mohammedans made their conquests. Instead of that continuous
succession of harassments devised by the subtle avarice of the
emperors, the peoples saw themselves subjected to a simple tax that
was easily paid and was similarly accepted; they obeyed a barbarian
nation more happily than the corrupt government under which they
had suffered both all the drawbacks of a liberty they no longer had and
all the horrors of a present servitude.

12 See what history says about the greatness, the eccentricity, and even the madness of these
taxes. Anastasius devised one for breathing air: “so that whoever inhaled a breath of air
paid the penalty” [L.].

CHAPTER 17

On the increase in troops

A new disease has spread across Europe; it has afflicted our princes and
made them keep an inordinate number of troops. It redoubles in
strength and necessarily becomes contagious; for, as soon as one state
increases what it calls its troops, the others suddenly increase theirs, so
that nothing is gained thereby but the common ruin. Each monarch
keeps ready all the armies he would have if his peoples were in danger
of being exterminated; and this state in which all strain against all is
called peace . 13 Thus Europe is so ruined that if individuals were in the
situation of the three most opulent powers in this part of the world, they
would have nothing to live on. We are poor with the wealth and
commerce of the whole universe, and soon, as a result of these soldiers,
we shall have nothing but soldiers and we shall be like the Tartars . 14

The great princes, not content to buy troops from smaller ones, seek
everywhere to buy alliances, that is, almost always to lose their silver.

13 It is true that it is this state of effort which principally maintains the balance, because it
exhausts the great powers.

14 For this, one must make use of the new invention of the militia established in almost the
whole of Europe and push them to the same excess as the regular troops.

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The levy of taxes and public revenues

The consequence of such a situation is the permanent increase in
taxes; and that which prevents all remedies in the future is that one no
longer counts on the revenues, but makes war with one’s capital. It is
not unheard of for states to mortgage their lands even during peace and
to ruin themselves by means they call extraordinary, which are so highly
extraordinary that the most deranged son of a family could scarcely
imagine them.

CHAPTER l8

On the remission of taxes

The maxim of the great eastern empires, that taxes should be returned
to provinces that have suffered, could well be brought to monarchical
states. There are many places where this is established, but more are
overwhelmed than if it were not established, because, since the prince
does not vaiy his levy, the whole state becomes jointly responsible. To
relieve a village whose payments are deficient, one burdens another
that pays more; the first is not restored, the second is destroyed. The
people grow desperate between the necessity of paying from fear of
exactions and the danger of paying from fear of surcharges.

A well-governed state should put in the first item of its expenditures
a regular sum for fortuitous cases. In this, the public is like those
individuals who ruin themselves by spending exactly the income from
their lands.

In regard to the joint responsibility among the inhabitants of a
village, this has been said 15 to be reasonable because one could assume
a fraudulent plot on their part; but, where has one found that, based on
suppositions, a thing that is unjust in itself and ruinous for the state has
to be established?

15 See [Pieter Burman] Vectigaliapopuli Romani, chap. 2, Paris, Briasson, 1740 [chap. 2, “De
vectigali ex agris publici”; pp. 12-25; 1734 edn].

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CHAPTER 19

What is most suitable for the prince and the people,
tax-farming or direct taxes ?

Direct taxes'' are the administration of a good father of a family who
levies his revenues himself with economy and order.

With direct taxes, the prince is in charge of hastening or delaying
their levy, either according to his needs or according to those of his
peoples. With direct taxes, he saves the state the immense profits made
by tax-farmers, who impoverish it in infinite ways. With direct taxes, he
saves the people from the grievous spectacle of sudden fortunes. With
direct taxes, the silver levied passes through few hands; it goes directly
to the prince and consequently reverts more promptly to the people.
With direct taxes, the prince saves the people from an infinity of bad
laws that are ever extorted from him by the importunate avarice of the
tax-farmers whose present advantage lies in regulations that are fatal
for the future.

Since the one who has silver is always the master of the one without,
the tax-farmer is despotic over even the prince; he is not a legislator but
he forces him to give laws.

I admit that it is sometimes useful to begin by farming out a newly
established duty. There are arts and inventions for warding off frauds
that the interest of the tax-farmers suggests to them and that agents
could not have devised; but, once the system for the levy is made by the
tax-farmer, direct taxes can be successfully established. In England,
the administration of the excise and of the revenues from the post office,
such as it is today, was borrowed from that of the tax-farmers.

In republics, the revenues of the state are almost always from direct
taxes. The contrary establishment was a great vice of the Roman
government. 16 In despotic states, where direct taxes are established, the

16 Caesar was obliged to take the publicans out of the province of Asia and to establish there
another sort of administration, as we learn from Cass. Dio [Historia Romana 42.6.3]. And
Tacitus tells us [Annates 1.76.2] that it was granted to Macedonia and Achaea, provinces
which Augustus had left to the Roman people, and which, consequently, were governed
on the old plan, to be among those the emperor governed through his officers.

d La regie , “direct taxes,” or the collection of taxes by governmental officials paid to do
the task. This contrasts with tax-farming, where the collectors keep some part of the
taxes they collect.

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The levy of taxes and public revenues

peoples are infinitely happier: witness Persia and China . 17 The unhap-
piest are those where the prince farms out his sea-ports and com-
mercial towns. The history of monarchies is full of the ills caused by
tax-collectors.

Nero, indignant at the harassments of the publicans, formed the
impossible and magnanimous project of abolishing all imposts. He did
not devise direct taxation; he made 18 four ordinances: that the laws
made against the publicans, hitherto kept secret, would be published;
that they could no longer exact what they had neglected to demand
during the year; that a praetor would be established to judge the
praetors’ claims with no formality; and that the merchants would pay
nothing for ships. Those were the halcyon days of this emperor.

17 See [John] Chardin, Voyages en Perse et autres lieux de I’Orient, vol. 6 [“Description du
gouvemement politique militaire et civil des Persans”, chap. 2; 5, 237; 181 1 edn],
I8 Tacitus, Annales, bk. 13 [13.51].

CHAPTER 20

On tax-collectors

All is lost when the lucrative profession of tax-collectors, by its wealth,
comes to be an honored profession. This can be good in despotic states,
where their employment is often a part of the functions of the governors
themselves. It is not good in a republic, and a similar thing destroyed
the Roman republic. It is no better in a monarchy; nothing is more
contrary to the spirit of this government. Disgust infects all the other
estates; honor loses all its esteem there; the slow and natural means for
distinguishing oneself no longer have an effect, and the principle of the
government is stricken.

In times past, one certainly saw scandalous fortunes; it was one of the
calamities of the Fifty Years Wars; but at that time this wealth was
regarded as ridiculous, and we admire it.

Every profession has some things as its lot. The lot of those who levy
taxes is wealth, and the reward for this wealth is wealth itself. Glory and
honor are for that nobility which knows, sees, and feels no real good
except honor and glory. Respect and esteem are for those ministers and
those magistrates who, finding only work upon work, watch day and
night over the happiness of the empire.

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f =

BOOK 14

On the laws in their relation
to the nature of the climate

CHAPTER I

The general idea

If it is true that the character* of the spirit and the passions of the heart
are extremely different in the various climates, laws should be relative
to the differences in these passions and to the differences in these
characters.

“Caractere can mean mark or sign, trait, or a habitual way of acting and feeling. When
Montesquieu uses caractere , he seems to mean a form or shape of the spirit, combining
these meanings.

CHAPTER 2

How much men differ in the various climates

Cold air 1 contracts the extremities of the body’s surface fibers; this
increases their spring and favors the return of blood from the extremi-
ties of the heart. It shortens these same fibers ; 2 therefore, it increases
their strength* in this way too. Hot air, by contrast, relaxes these
extremities of the fibers and lengthens them; therefore, it decreases
their strength and their spring.

Therefore, men are more vigorous in cold climates. The action of
the heart and the reaction of the extremities of the fibers are in closer

'This is even visible: in the cold, one appears thinner.

2 It is known that it shortens iron.

*We translate force as both “force” and “strength,” as the
context is more and less abstract.

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accord, the fluids are in a better equilibrium, the blood is pushed
harder toward the heart and, reciprocally, the heart has more power.
This greater strength should produce many effects: for example, more
confidence in oneself, that is, more courage; better knowledge of one’s
superiority, that is, less desire for vengeance; a higher opinion of one’s
security, that is, more frankness and fewer suspicions, maneuvers, and
tricks. Finally, it should make very different characters. Put a man in a
hot, enclosed spot, and he will suffer, for the reasons just stated, a great
slackening of heart. If, in the circumstance, one proposes a bold action
to him, I believe one will find him little disposed toward it; his present
weakness will induce discouragement in his soul; he will fear every-
thing, because he will feel he can do nothing. The peoples in hot
countries are timid like old men; those in cold countries are courageous
like young men. If we turn our attention to the recent wars , 3 which are
the ones we can best observe and in which we can better see certain
slight effects that are imperceptible from a distance, we shall certainly
feel that the actions of the northern peoples who were sent to southern
countries 4 were not as fine as the actions of their compatriots who,
fighting in their own climate, enjoyed the whole of their courage.

The strength of the fibers of the northern peoples causes them to
draw the thickest juices from their food. Two things result from this:
first, that the parts of the chyle, or lymph/ being broad surfaced, are
more apt to be applied to the fibers and to nourish them; and second,
that, being coarse, they are less apt to give a certain subtlety to the
nervous juice. Therefore, these people will have large bodies and little
vivacity.

The nerves, which end in the tissue of our skin, are made of a sheaf
of nerves. Ordinarily, it is not the whole nerve that moves, but an
infinitely small part of it. In hot countries, where the tissue of the skin is
relaxed, the ends of the nerves are open and exposed to the weakest
action of the slightest objects. In cold countries, the tissue of the skin is
contracted and the papillae compressed. The little bunches are in a way
paralyzed; sensation hardly passes to the brain except when it is
extremely strong and is of the entire nerve together. But imagination,

3 The War of the Spanish Succession.

4 In Spain, for example.

‘In the eighteenth century these words referred to various body fluids, without the
precise denotations they have in modem physiology.

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The laws and the climate

taste, sensitivity, and vivacity depend on an infinite number of small
sensations.

I have observed the place on the surface tissue of a sheep’s tongue
which appears to the naked eye to be covered with papillae. Through a
microscope, I have seen the tiny hairs, or a kind of down, on these
papillae; between these papillae were pyramids, forming something
like little brushes at the ends. It is very likely that these pyramids are the
principal organ of taste.

I had half of the tongue frozen; and, with the naked eye I found the
papillae considerably diminished; some of the rows of papillae had even
slipped inside their sheaths: I examined the tissue through a micro-
scope; I could no longer see the pyramids. As the tongue thawed, the
papillae appeared again to the naked eye, and, under the microscope,
the little brushes began to reappear.

This observation confirms what I have said, that, in cold countries,
the tufts of nerves are less open; they slip inside their sheaths, where
they are protected from the action of external objects. Therefore,
sensations are less vivid.

In cold countries, one will have little sensitivity to pleasures; one will
have more of it in temperate countries; in hot countries, sensitivity will
be extreme. As one distinguishes climates by degrees of latitude, one
can also distinguish them by degrees of sensitivity, so to speak. I have
seen operas in England and Italy; they are the same plays with the same
actors: but the same music produces such different effects in the
people of the two nations that it seems inconceivable, the one so calm
and the other so transported.

It will be the same for pain; pain is aroused in us by the tearing of
some fiber in our body. The author of nature has established that this
pain is stronger as the disorder is greater; now it is evident that the large
bodies and coarse fibers of the northern peoples are less capable of
falling into disorder than the delicate fibers of the peoples of hot
countries; therefore, the soul is less sensitive to pain. A Muscovite has
to be flayed before he feels anything.

With that delicacy of organs found in hot countries, the soul is
sovereignly moved by all that is related to the union of the two sexes;
everything leads to this object.

In northern climates, the physical aspect of love has scarcely enough
strength to make itself felt; in temperate climates, love, accompanied by
a thousand accessories, is made pleasant by things that at first seem to

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be love but are still not love; in hotter climates, one likes love for itself; it
is the sole cause of happiness; it is life.

In southern climates, a delicate, weak, but sensitive machine gives
itself up to a love which in a seraglio is constantly aroused and calmed;
or else to a love which as it leaves women much more independent is
exposed to a thousand troubles. In northern countries, a healthy and
well-constituted but heavy machine finds its pleasures in all that can
start the spirits in motion again: hunting, travels, war, and wine. You
will find in the northern climates peoples who have few vices, enough
virtues, and much sincerity and frankness. As you move toward the
countries of the south, you will believe you have moved away from
morality itself: the liveliest passions will increase crime; each will seek
to take from others all the advantages that can favor these same
passions. In temperate countries, you will see peoples whose manners,
and even their vices and virtues are inconstant; the climate is not
sufficiently settled to fix them.

The heat of the climate can be so excessive that the body there will be
absolutely without strength. So, prostration will pass even to the spirit;
no curiosity, no noble enterprise, no generous sentiment; inclinations
will all be passive there; laziness there will be happiness; most
chastisements there will be less difficult to bear than the action of the
soul, and servitude will be less intolerable than the strength of spirit
necessary to guide one’s own conduct.

CHAPTER 3

A contradiction in the characters of certain
peoples of the South

Indians 5 are by nature without courage; even the children 6 of
Europeans born in the Indies lose the courage of the European climate.
But how does this accord with their atrocious actions, their barbaric

5 (Jean Baptiste] Tavernier says, “A hundred European soldiers would have little difficulty
routing a thousand Indian soldiers.” [Travels in India-, bk. 2, ch. 9; 1, 391; 1889 edn.]
6 Even Persians who settle in the Indies take on, in the third generation, the indolence and
cowardice of the Indians. See [Francois] Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, vol. 1, p. 282
[“Letter to Colbert concerning Hindustan”; p. 209; 1916 edn].

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The laws and the climate

customs and penitences? Men there suffer unbelievable evils; women
burn themselves: this is considerable strength for so much weakness.

Nature, which has given these peoples a weakness that makes them
timid, has also given them such a lively imagination that everything
strikes them to excess. The same delicacy of organs that makes them
fear death serves also to make them dread a thousand things more than
death. The same sensitivity makes the Indians both flee all perils and
brave them all.

As a good education is more necessary to children than to those of
mature spirit, so the peoples of these climates have greater need of a
wise legislator than the peoples of our own. The more easily and
forcefully one is impressed, the more important it is to be impressed in
a suitable manner, to accept no prejudices, and to be led by reason.

In the time of the Romans, the peoples of northern Europe lived
without arts, without education, almost without laws, and still, with only
the good sense connected with the coarse fibers of these climates, they
maintained themselves with remarkable wisdom against the Roman
power until they came out of their forests to destroy it.

CHAPTER 4

The cause of the immutability of religion, mores, manners,
and laws in the countries of the east

If you join the weakness of organs that makes the peoples of the East
receive the strongest impressions in the world to a certain laziness of
the spirit, naturally bound with that of the body, which makes that spirit
incapable of any action, any effort, any application, you will understand
that the soul can no longer alter impressions once it has received them.
This is why laws, mores , 7 and manners, even those that seem not to
matter, like the fashion in clothing, remain in the East today as they
were a thousand years ago.

7 In a fragment from Nicholas of Damascus, in the collection of Constantine Porphyro-
genitus, one sees that it was an ancient custom in the East to send someone to strangle a
governor who displeased; this dates from the times of the Medes. [Nicholas of Damascus,
Fragments , #66.26; FGrH; 2A, 366-367.]

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chapter 5

That bad legislators are those who have favored the vices of
the climate and good ones are those who have opposed them

Indians believe that rest and nothingness are the foundation of all
things and the end to which they lead. Therefore, they consider total
inaction as the most perfect state and the object of their desires. They
give to the sovereign being 8 the title of the unmoving one. The Siamese
believe that the supreme felicity 9 consists in not being obliged to
animate a machine or to make a body act.

In these countries where excessive heat enervates and overwhelms,
rest is so delicious and movement so painful that this system of
metaphysics appears natural; and Foe , 10 legislator of the Indies,
followed his feelings when he put men in an extremely passive state; but
his doctrine, bom of idleness of the climate, favoring it in turn, has
caused a thousand ills.

The legislators of China were more sensible when, as they con-
sidered men not in terms of the peaceful state in which they will one day
be but in terms of the action proper to making them fulfill the duties of
life, they made their religion, philosophy, and laws all practical. The
more the physical causes incline men to rest, the more the moral causes
should divert them from it.

g Panamanack. See [Athanasius] Kirch er [La Chine illustree, pt. 3, chap. 6; p. 215; 1670
edn].

9 [Simon de] la Loubere, The Kingdom of Siam, p. 446 [pt. 3, chap. 22; p. 129; 1969 edn],

10 Foe wants to reduce the heart to pure emptiness. “We have eyes and ears, but perfection
consists in not seeing or hearing; perfection, for those members, the mouth, hands, etc., is
to be inactive.” This is taken from the “Dialog of a Chinese Philosopher,” reported by
Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de {’Empire de la Chine\, vol. 3 [3, 59 H; 3, 49 P;
3, 268 L],

CHAPTER 6

On the cultivation of land in hot climates

The cultivation of land is the greatest labor of men. The more their
climate inclines them to flee this labor, the more their religion and laws
should rouse them to it. Thus, the laws of the Indies, which give the

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The laws and the climate

lands to the princes and take away from individuals the spirit of
ownership, increase the bad effects of the climate, that is, natural
laziness.

CHAPTER 7

On monasticism

Monasticism causes the same evils there; it was bom in the hot eastern
countries where one is given to action less than to speculation.

In Asia the number of dervishes, or monks, seems to increase with
the heat of the climate; the Indies, where it is extremely hot, are full of
them; one finds the same difference in Europe.

In order to conquer the laziness that comes from the climate, the
laws must seek to take away every means of living without labor, but in
southern Europe they do the opposite: they give to those who want to be
idle places proper for the speculative life, and attach immense wealth to
those places. These people who live in an abundance that is burden-
some to them correcdy give their excess to the common people: the
common people have lost the ownership of goods; the people are repaid
for it by the idleness they enjoy and they come to love their very poverty.

CHAPTER 8

A good custom in China

The accounts 11 of China tell us of the ceremony that the emperor
performs every year to open the cultivation of the fields . 12 By this public
and solemn act one has wanted to rouse 13 the peoples to their plowing.

"Father (Jean Baptiste] du Halde, Description de {’Empire de la Chine, vol. 2, p. 72 [“De la
fertilite des terres”; 2, 70-71 P; 2, 81-84 H; 2, 1 20-1 23 L].

12 A number of the kings in the Indies do the same thing. The Kingdom of Siam, by {Simon de]
la Loubere, p. 69 [pt. 1, chap. 8; p. 20; 1969 edn].

13 Ven-ti, third emperor of the fifth dynasty, cultivated the land with his own hands, and had
the empress and her women make silk in the palace. [J ean Baptiste du Halde] Description de
I'Empiredela Chine, [“Ven Ti, 3rd emperor, 5th Dynasty”; 1, 380 P; 1, 350 H; 1, 349 L],

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Moreover, each year the emperor is informed of the plowman who
has most distinguished himself in his profession; he makes him a
mandarin of the eighth order.

Among the ancient Persians, 14 on the eighth day of the month named
Chorem ruz the kings would lay aside their pomp and eat with the
plowmen. These institutions are remarkable for encouraging
agriculture.

14 [Thomas] Hyde, Historia religionis veterum Persarum in Sad-der [chap. 19; pp. 253-254;
1700 edn).

CHAPTER 9

A means of encouraging industriousness

I shall show in Book 19 that, ordinarily, lazy nations are arrogant. One
could turn effect against cause and destroy laziness by arrogance. In
southern Europe, where peoples are so impressed by the point of
honor, it would be well to give prizes to the plowmen who had best
cultivated their lands and to the workers who had been most
industrious. This practice will succeed in every country. In our time it
has been used in Ireland to establish one of the largest textile mills in
Europe.

CHAPTER 10

On laws related to the sobriety of peoples

In hot countries, perspiration dissipates much of the watery part of the
blood; 15 a like liquid must therefore be substituted for it. Water is
remarkably useful for this; alcoholic beverages there would coagulate

15 Mr. Bernier, traveling from Lahore to Kashmir, wrote: “My body is a sieve; scarcely do 1
swallow a pint of water than I see it come out like a dew from all my members, including my
fingertips; 1 drink ten pints a day and it does me no harm.” [Francois] Bernier, Travels in
the Mogul Empire,\o\. 2, p. 261 [“Journey to Kachemire, Sixth Letter”; p. 388; 1916 edn].

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The laws and the climate

the globules 16 of blood that remain after the dissipation of the watery-
part.

In cold countries, perspiration releases little of the watery part of the
blood; it remains in abundance; therefore one can use spirits there
without making the blood coagulate. One is full of humors there;
alcoholic beverages, which give motion to the blood, are suitable.

The law of Mohammed that prohibits the drinking of wine is,
therefore, a law of the climate of Arabia; thus, before Mohammed,
water was the ordinary drink of the Arabs. The law 17 that prohibits the
Carthaginians from drinking wine was also a law of the climate; in
effect, the climate of these two countries is about the same.

Such a law would not be good in cold countries, where the climate
seems to force a certain drunkenness of the nation quite different from
drunkenness of the person. Drunkenness is found established around
the world in proportion to the cold and dampness of the climate. As you
go from the equator to our pole, you will see drunkenness increase with
the degree of latitude. As you go from the same equator to the opposite
pole, you will find drunkenness to the south , 18 as on our side to the
north.

It is natural that excess should be more severely punished where
wine is contrary to the climate and consequently to health than in
countries where drunkenness has few ill effects for the person, few for
the society, and does not make men frenzied, but only dull witted.
Thus, the laws 19 that punished a drunken man both for the error
committed and for drunkenness were applicable only to drunkenness
of the person and not to drunkenness of the nation. A German drinks
by custom, a Spaniard by choice.

In hot countries, relaxation of the fibers produces a great perspir-
ation of liquids, but solids dissipate less. The fibers, which have only a
very weak action and little spring, are scarcely used; little nutritious
juice is needed to repair them; thus, one eats little there.

The differing needs of differing climates have formed differing ways

l6 In the blood there are red globules, fibrous particles, white globules, and the water in
which all this swims.

17 Plato, Laws, bk. 2 [674a]; Aristotle, Oeconomica [1344333-34]; Eusebius, Praeparationes
evangelicae,bk. 12, chap. 17 [12. 25.1; 5984!].

18 This is seen among the Hottentots and the peoples at the tip of Chile, who are further to
the south.

19 Like those of Pittacus, according to Aristotle, Pol . , bk. 2, chap. 3 [1274b! 8-23]. He lived
in a climate in which drunkenness is not a vice of the nation.

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of living, and these differing ways of living have formed the various
sorts of laws. If men communicate much with each other in a nation,
there must be certain laws; there must be others for a people where
there is no communication.

CHAPTER II

On the laws relating to diseases from the climate

Herodotus 20 tells us that the laws of the Jews about leprosy were drawn
from the practice of the Egyptians. Indeed, the same diseases required
the same cures. These laws, as well as the illness, were unknown to the
Greeks and the first Romans. The climate of Egypt and Palestine made
these laws necessary, and the ease with which this disease spread
should make us feel clearly the wisdom and foresight of such laws.

We ourselves have suffered the effects of disease. The Crusades
brought us leprosy; wise rulings were made that prevented it from
spreading to the mass of the people.

One sees in the Law of the Lombards 21 that this disease was
widespread in Italy before the Crusades and deserved the attention of
legislators. Rotharis ordered that a leper driven from his house and
kept in a particular spot could not make disposition of his goods,
because he was presumed dead from the moment he was taken from his
house. In order to prevent any communication with lepers, they were
not allowed to have any possessions/

I think that this disease was brought to Italy by the conquests of the
Greek emperors, whose armies may have included militia from
Palestine or Egypt. Whatever the case, its progress was checked until
the time of the Crusades.

It is said that Pompey’s soldiers, on returning from Syria, brought
back a disease somewhat like leprosy. No regulation made at that time
has come down to us, but it is likely that there were some, for this ill was
checked until the time of the Lombards.

20 [Herodotus, The Persian Wars\ bk. 2. [Herodotus nowhere mentions the Hebrews, but
consider 1.138 (9) for Persian customs concerning leprosy; consider also Leviticus 4.22,
3 °-l

21 [Leges Langobardorum\bk. 2, tit. 1, para. 3 [Roth. 180] and bk. 2, tit. 18, para. 1 [Roth. 176].

d effets civils.

240

The lam and the climate

Two centuries ago, a disease unknown to our fathers traveled from
the New World to this one and came to attack human nature at the very
source of life and pleasures. Most of the important families of southern
Europe were afflicted by a disease that became so common that it was
no longer shameful and was merely deadly. It was the thirst for gold that
perpetuated this disease; men continued their voyages to America and
brought back new leaven of it each time they returned.

For reasons of piety one wanted to let this be the punishment of the
crime, but the disaster had entered marriages and had already corrup-
ted childhood itself.

As it is in the wisdom of legislators to keep watch over the health of
the citizens, it would have been very sensible to check the spread of the
disease by laws made on the plan of the Mosaic laws.

The plague is an evil whose ravages are even more prompt and rapid.
Its principal seat is in Egypt, from which it spreads over the universe. In
most of the states of Europe very good regulations have been made to
prevent its entry, and in our times a remarkable means has been devised
to check it; a line of troops is formed around the infected country,
which prevents communication of the disease.

The Turks , 22 who have no police on these matters, see Christians in
the same town escape the danger and themselves alone perish. They
buy the clothing of those stricken by the plague, wear it, and go their
way. The doctrine of a rigid destiny ruling all makes the magistrate a
tranquil spectator; he thinks that god has already done everything and
that he himself has nothing to do.

22 [Paul] Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 284 [bk. 2, chap. 6; p.
46; 1703 edn].

CHAPTER 12

On laws against those who kill themselves 23

We see in the histories that the Romans did not inflict death on
themselves without cause, but the English resolve to kill themselves
when one can imagine no reason for their decisions; they kill them-
selves in the very midst of happiness. Among the Romans, the act was

23 The act of those who kill themselves is contrary to natural law and to revealed religion.

241

the consequence of education; it comes from their way of thinking and
their customs: among the English, it is the effect of an illness ; 24 it comes
from the physical state of the machine and is independent of any other
cause.

It is likely that there is a failure in the filtering of the nervous juice;
the machine, when the forces that give it motion stay inactive, wearies
of itself; it is not pain the soul feels but a certain difficulty in existence.
Pain is a local ill which inclines us to the desire to see this pain cease;
the weight of life is an illness having no particular place, which inclines
us to the desire to see this life end.

It is clear that the civil laws of some countries have had reasons to
stigmatize the murder of oneself, but in England one can no more
punish it than one can punish the effects of madness.

24 It could well be complicated by scurvy, which, especially in some countries, makes a man
eccentric and intolerable to himself. Francois Pyrard, Voyages, pt. 2, chap. 21 [vol. 2, pt. 2;
3, 391; 1887-1889 edn).

CHAPTER 13

Effects resulting from the climate of England

In a nation whose soul is so affected by an illness of climate that it could
carry the repugnance for all things to include that of life, one sees that
the most suitable government for people to whom everything can be
intolerable would be the one in which they could not be allowed to
blame any one person for causing their sorrows, and in which, as laws
rather than men would govern, the laws themselves must be over-
thrown in order to change the state.

For if the same nation had also received from the climate a certain
characteristic of impatience that did not permit it to tolerate the same
things for long, it can be seen that the government of which we have just
spoken would still be the most suitable.

The characteristic of impatience is not serious in itself, but it can
become very much so when it is joined to courage.

It is different from fickleness, which makes one undertake things
without purpose and abandon them likewise. It is nearer to obstinacy
because it comes from a feeling of ills which is so lively that it is not
weakened even by the habit of tolerating them.

The laws and the climate

In a free nation, this characteristic would be one apt to frustrate the
projects of tyranny , 25 which is always slow and weak in its beginnings,
just as it is prompt and lively at its end, which shows at first only a hand
extended in aid, and later oppresses with an infinity of arms.

Servitude always begins with drowsiness. But a people who rest in no
situation, who constantly pinch themselves to find the painful spots,
could scarcely fall asleep.

Politics is a dull rasp which by slowly grinding away gains its end.
Now the men of whom we have just spoken could not support the
delays, the details and the coolness of negotiations; they would often
succeed in them less well than any other nation, and they would lose by
their treaties what they had gained by their weapons.

25 1 take this word to mean the design of upsetting the established power, chiefly democracy.
This was its meaning for the Greeks and Romans.

CHAPTER 14

Other effects of the climate

Our fathers, the ancient Germans, lived in a climate where the passions
were calm. Their laws found in things only what they saw, and they
imagined nothing more. And just as these laws judged insults to men by
the size of the wounds, they put no greater refinement in the offenses to
women. The Law of the Alemanni 26 on this point is quite singular. If
one exposes a woman’s head, one will pay a fine of six sous; it is the
same for exposing a leg up to the knee; double above the knee. The law,
it seems, measured the size of the outrages done a woman’s person as
one measures a geometric figure; the law did not punish the crime of
the imagination, it punished that of the eyes. But when a Germanic
nation moved to Spain, the climate required quite different laws. The
laws of the Visigoths prohibited doctors from bleeding a freeborn
woman except in the presence of her father or mother, her brother, her
son, or her uncle. The imagination of the peoples was fired, that of the
legislators was likewise ignited; the law suspected everything in a
people capable of suspecting everything.

Therefore, these laws gave an extreme attention to the two sexes.

lb [Leges Alamannorum] chap. 58, paras. 1-2 [A56.1-2; B58.1-2].

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But it seems that in their punishing they thought more of gratifying
individual vengeance than of exercising public vengeance. Thus, in
most cases they reduced the two guilty ones to the servitude of their
relatives or of the offended husband. A freeborn woman 27 who had
given herself to a married man was put into the power of his wife, to
do with as she wanted. These laws required that slaves 28 bind up and
present to the husband his wife whom they had caught in adultery; they
permitted her children 29 to accuse her, and they permitted torturing
her slaves in order to convict her. Thus these laws were more proper
for the excessive refinement of a certain point of honor than for the
formation of a good police. And one must not be astonished if Count
Julian believed an outrage of this kind required the loss of one’s country
or of one’s king. One should not be surprised that the Moors, whose
mores were so similar, found it so easy to establish themselves in Spain,
to maintain themselves there, and to delay the fall of their empire.

21 Lex Wisigothorum, bk. 3, tit. 4, para. 9 {3.4.9].

28 Ibid. [Lex Wisigothorum], bk. 3, tit. 4, para. 6 [3.4.6].

29 Ibid. [Lex Wisigothorum], bk. 3, tit. 4, para. 13 (3.4.13].

CHAPTER 15

On the differing trust the lam have in people according to
the climate

The Japanese people have such an atrocious character that their
legislators and magistrates have not been able to place any trust in
them; they have set before the eyes of the people only judges, threats,
and chastisements; they have subjected them at every step to the
inquisition of the police. These laws that establish, in every five heads
of families, one as magistrate over the other four, these laws that punish
a whole family or a whole neighborhood for a single crime, these laws
that find no innocent men where there can be a guilty one, are made so
that all men distrust one another, so that each scrutinizes the conduct
of the other, and so that each is his own inspector, witness, and judge.

On the other hand, the people of the Indies are gentle , 30 tender, and

30 See [Francois] Bernier [ Travels in the Mogul Empire ], vol. 2, p. 140 [“History of the States
of the Great Mogul”; p. 99, 1916 edn].

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The lams and the climate

compassionate. Thus, their legislators have put great trust in them.
They have established few penalties , 31 and these are not very severe or
even strictly executed. They have given nephews to uncles and orphans
to guardians, as elsewhere they are given to their fathers; they have
regulated inheritance by the recognized merit of the heir. It seems they
have thought that each citizen should rely on the natural goodness of
the others.

They easily give liberty 32 to their slaves; they marry them; they treat
them like their children : 33 happy is the climate that gives birth to candor
in mores and produces gendeness in laws!

3 1 See Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, vol. 1 4, p. 403 [Lettre du P. Bouchet, Pontichery, October
2, 1714; 14, 402-404; 1720 edn] for the principal laws or customs of the peoples of India
on the peninsula this side of the Ganges.

32 Vol. 9 of the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses , p. 378 [Lettre du P. Bouchet, 9, 37; 1730 edn).

33 1 had thought that the gendeness of slavery in the Indies had made Diodurus say that in
this country there was neither master nor slave, but Diodorus attributed to the whole of
India what, according to Strabo [Geograpkica], bk. 15 [15. 1.54], was proper only to a
particular nation.

245

BOOK 15

How the laws of civil slavery are related
with the nature of the climate

CHAPTER I

On civil slavery

Slavery in its proper sense is the establishment of a right which makes
one man so much the owner of another man that he is the absolute
master of his life and of his goods. It is not good by its nature; it is useful
neither to the master nor to the slave: not to the slave, because he can
do nothing from virtue; not to the master, because he contracts all sorts
of bad habits from his slaves, because he imperceptibly grows
accustomed to failing in all the moral virtues, because he grows proud,
curt, harsh, angry, voluptuous, and cruel.

In despotic countries, where one is already in political slavery, civil
slavery is more bearable than elsewhere. Each one there should be
satisfied to have his sustenance and his life. Thus, the condition of the
slave is scarcely more burdensome than the condition of the subject.

But in monarchical government, where it is sovereignly important
neither to beat down nor to debase human nature, there must be no
slaves. In democracy, where everyone is equal, and in aristocracy,
where the laws should put their effort into making everyone as equal as
the nature of the government can permit, slaves are contrary to the
spirit of the constitution; they serve only to give citizens a power and a
luxury they should not have.

The laws of civil slavery

CHAPTER 2

The origin of the right of slavery according to
the Roman jurists a

One would never believe that pity established slavery and that in order
to do so it went about it in three ways . 1

The right of nations wanted prisoners to become slaves so that they
would not be killed. The civil right of the Romans permitted debtors
whose creditors might have mistreated them to sell themselves; and
natural right wanted the children of an enslaved father who was no
longer able to feed them to be enslaved like their father.

These reasons of the jurists are not sensible. It is false that killing in
war is permissible except in the case of necessity; but, when a man has
made another man his slave, it cannot be said that he had of necessity to
kill him, since he did not do so. The only right that war can give over
captives is that they may be imprisoned so that they can no longer do
harm. Murdering in cold blood by soldiers after the heat of the action is
condemned by all the nations of the world . 2

2. It is not true that a freeman can sell himself. A sale assumes a
price; if the slave sold himself, all his goods would become the property
of the master; therefore, the master would give nothing and the slave
would receive nothing. He would have some savings, one will say, but
the savings are attached to the person. If it is not permitted to kill
oneself because one will be lost to one’s homeland, no more is it
permitted to sell oneself. The liberty of each citizen is a part of the
public liberty. This status in the popular state is also a part of
sovereignty. To sell one’s status as a citizen* is an act of such
extravagance 3 that one cannot suppose a man would do it. If liberty has
a price for the one who buys it, it is priceless for the one who sells it.
Civil law, which has permitted the division of goods among men, could
not have put among those goods some of the men who were to take part
in the division. Civil law, which makes restitution in contracts that

' [Corpus Juris Ctvilis] Institutes, bk. i [ 1 . 3 ; de jure personarum],

2 Unless one wants to mention those who eat their prisoners.

3 1 speak of slavery in the strict sense, such as it was among the Romans and as it is
established in our colonies.

d By the Roman jurists M. means the views expressed in the corpus juris civilis.
* qualite de citoyen.

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contain some injury, cannot keep from making restitution for an
agreement that contains the most enormous of all injuries.

The third way is birth. This falls along with the other two. For, if a
man cannot sell himself, even less can he sell a man who has not been
bom; if a prisoner of war cannot be reduced to servitude, still less can
his children.

What makes the death of a criminal lawful is that the law punishing
him was made in his favor. A murderer, for example, has enjoyed the
law that condemns him; it has preserved his life at every moment;
therefore, he cannot make a claim against it. It is not the same with the
slave; the law of slavery has never been useful to him; it is against him in
every case, without ever being for him, which is contrary to the
fundamental principle of all societies.

One will say that the law has been useful to the slave because the
master has nourished him. Therefore, those persons incapable of
earning their living must be reduced to servitude. But one does not
want such slaves as these. As for children, nature, which has given milk
to mothers, has provided for their nourishment, and the remainder of
their childhood is so nearly at the age when they have the greatest
ability to make themselves useful, that one could not say that he who
had nourished them, even though he was their master, had given them
anything.

Moreover, slavery is as opposed to civil right as to natural right. What
civil law could keep a slave from flight, since he is not in society and,
consequently, civil laws are not his concern? He can be restrained only
by a family law, that is, by the law of the master.

CHAPTER 3

Another origin of the right of slavery

I would as soon say that the right of slavery comes from the scorn that
one nation conceives for another, founded on the difference in
customs.

Lopez de Gomara 4 says that “the Spanish found, close to Sainte-

4 Bibliotheque anglaise, vol. 13, pt. 2, art. 3. [Gomara is quoted in a review of Hans Sloane’s/i
Voyage to the Islands of Madera [«V]» Barbados, Nieves, St. Christopher 's, and Jamaica, pp. 399-
440 of the Bibliotheque ; the Gomara quotation is on pp. 425-426 of the Bibliotheque. It can

248

The laws of civil slavery

Marie, baskets in which the inhabitants had put produce; there were
crabs, snails, crickets, and grasshoppers. The victors treated this as a
crime in the vanquished.” The author claims that the right that made
the Americans slaves of the Spanish was founded on this, not to
mention the fact that they smoked tobacco and that they did not cut
their beards in the Spanish fashion.

Knowledge makes men gentle, and reason inclines toward human-
ity; only prejudices cause these to be renounced.

be found in Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Historic general de las Indias, chap. 7 1 , “Santa
Marta,” 1, 168-171; 1932 edn.]

CHAPTER 4

Another origin of the right of slavery

I would as soon say that religion gives to those who profess it a right to
reduce to servitude those who do not profess it, in order to work more
easily for its propagation.

It was this way of thinking that encouraged the destroyers of America
in their crimes . 5 On this idea they founded the right of making so many
peoples slaves; for these brigands, who absolutely wanted to be both
brigands and Christians, were very devout.

Louis XIII 6 was extremely pained by the law making slaves of the
Negroes in his colonies, but when it had been brought fully to his mind
that this was the surest way to convert them, he consented to it.

s See the history of the conquest of Mexico by [Antoine de] Solis [y Rivadeneyra] [History of
the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards ] , and that of Peru, by Garcilaso de la Vega [El Inca,
Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru).

6 [Jean Baptiste] Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de VAmerique, vol. 4, p. 1 14, 1722 edn
[pt. 4, chap. 7, p. 38; 1698 edn].

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Part 3

chapter 5

On the slavery of Negroes

If I had to defend the right we had of making Negroes slaves, here is
what I would say:

The peoples of Europe, having exterminated those of America, had
to make slaves of those of Africa in order to use them to clear so much
land.

Sugar would be too expensive if the plant producing it were not
cultivated by slaves.

Those concerned are black from head to toe, and they have such flat
noses that it is almost impossible to feel sorry for them.

One cannot get into one’s mind that god, who is a very wise being,
should have put a soul, above all a good soul, in a body that was entirely
black.

It is so natural to think that color constitutes the essence of humanity
that the peoples of Asia who make eunuchs continue to deprive blacks
of their likeness to us in a more distinctive way.

One can judge the color of the skin by the color of the hair, which,
among the Egyptians, who are the best philosophers in the world, was
of such great consequence that they had all the red-haired men who fell
into their hands put to death.

A proof that Negroes do not have common sense is that they make
more of a glass necklace than of one of gold, which is of such great
consequence among nations having a police.

It is impossible for us to assume that these people are men because if
we assumed they were men one would begin to believe that we
ourselves were not Christians.

Petty spirits exaggerate too much the injustice done the Africans.
For, if it were as they say, would it not have occurred to the princes of
Europe, who make so many useless agreements with one another, to
make a general one in favor of mercy and pity?

250

The laws of civil slavery

chapter 6

The true origin of the right of slavery

It is time to seek the true origin of the right of slavery. It should be
founded on the nature of things; let us see if there are cases where it
does derive from it.

In every despotic government, it is very easy to sell oneself; there
political slavery more or less annihilates civil liberty.

Mr. Perry 7 says that the Muscovites sell themselves easily: I know the
reason well; it is because their liberty is worth nothing.

In Achim everyone seeks to sell himself. Some of the principal lords
have no fewer than a thousand slaves , 8 who are the principal mer-
chants, who also have many slaves under them, and these latter many
others; they are inherited and there is a traffic in them. In these states,
the freemen, who are too weak to oppose the government, seek to
become the slaves of those who tyrannize the government.

Here lies the just origin, the one conforming to reason, of the very
gentle right of slavery that one sees in some countries, and it has to be
gentle because it is founded on the free choice of a master, a choice a
man makes for his own utility and which forms a reciprocal agreement
between the two parties.

7 John Perry, The State of Russia under the Present Czar (Paris, 1717)- [Perry describes all
Russians as slaves to the Czar; perhaps M. has in mind pp. 258-260; 1967 edn.]
8 William Dampier, Voyages, vol. 3 (Amsterdam, 171 1) [vol. 2, pt. 1, chap. 7; 2, 67; 1906
edn].

CHAPTER 7

Another origin of the right of slavery

Here is another origin of the right of slavery and even of that cruel
slavery seen among men.

There are countries where the heat enervates the body and weakens
the courage so much that men come to perform an arduous duty only
from fear of chastisement; slavery there runs less counter to reason,
and as the master is as cowardly before his prince as his slave is before
him, civil slavery there is again accompanied by political slavery.

251

Aristotle 9 wants to prove that there are slaves by nature, and what he
says scarcely proves it. I believe that, if there are any such, they are
those whom I have just mentioned.

But, as all men are born equal, one must say that slavery is against
nature, although in certain countries it may be founded on a natural
reason, and these countries must be distinguished from those in which
even natural reasons reject it, as in the countries of Europe where it has
so fortunately been abolished.

Plutarch tells us in the life of Numa that there was neither master nor
slave in the age of Saturn/ In our climates, Christianity has brought
back that age.

9 [Aristotle], Pol., bk. i,chap. i [1254317-125532].

'See Plutarch, Comp, Lycurgus and Numa, 1.5.

CHAPTER 8

Uselessness of slavery among ourselves

Therefore, natural slavery must be limited to certain particular
countries of the world. In all the others, it seems to me that everything
can be done by freemen, however arduous the work that society
requires.

What makes me think this is that before Christianity had abolished
civil servitude in Europe, work in the mines was regarded as so arduous
that one believed it could be done only by slaves or criminals. But today
one knows that men employed there live happily . 10 One has encour-
aged this profession by small privileges; to an increase in work one has
joined an increase in gain, and one has come to make them love their
condition more than any other they could have assumed.

There is no work so arduous that one cannot adjust it to the strength
of the one who does it, provided that reason and not avarice regulates it.
With the convenience of machines invented or applied by art, one can
replace the forced labor that elsewhere is done by slaves. The mines of

I0 One can leam what happens in this respect in the mines of the Ham in lower Saxony and
in those of Hungary.

The laws of civil slavery

the Turks, in the Province of Timisuara/ were richer than those in
Hungary, but they did not produce as much because the imagination of
the Turks never went beyond the brawn of their slaves.

I do not know if my spirit or my heart dictates this point. Perhaps
there is no climate on earth where one could not engage freemen to
work. Because the laws were badly made, lazy men appeared; because
these men were lazy, they were enslaved.

^In present-day Rumania.

CHAPTER 9

On nations among whom civil liberty is generally
established

Every day one hears it said that it would be good if there were slaves
among us.

But, to judge this, one must not examine whether they would be
useful to the small, rich, and voluptuous part of each nation; doubtless
they would be useful to it; but, taking another point of view, I do not
believe that any one of those who make it up would want to draw lots to
know who was to form the part of the nation that would be free and the
one that would be enslaved. Those who most speak in favor of slavery
would hold it the most in horror, and the poorest of men would likewise
find it horrible. Therefore, the cry for slavery is the cry of luxury and
voluptuousness, and not that of the love of public felicity. Who can
doubt that each man, individually, would not be quite content to be the
master of the goods, the honor, and the life of others and that all his
passions would not be awakened at once at this idea? Do you want to
know whether the desires of each are legitimate in these things?
Examine the desires of all.

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Part 3

CHAPTER 10

The various kinds of slavery

There are two sorts of slavery: real and personal. The real one is the
one that attaches the slave to the land. Such were the slaves among the
Germans, so Tacitus relates . 11 They held no office in the household;
they returned a certain quantity of grain, livestock, or cloth to their
master; the purpose of their slavery went no further. This kind of
servitude is still established in Hungary, Bohemia, and several places in
southern Germany.

The concern of personal servitude is service in the household, and it
relates more to the person of the master.

Extreme abuses of slavery occur when it is personal and real at the
same time. Such was the servitude of the Helots among the
Lacedaemonians; they were subjected to all the work outside the
household and to all sorts of insults within the household: this helotism
is contrary to the nature of things. Simple peoples have only real
slavery 12 because their women and children do the domestic work.
Voluptuous peoples have personal slavery, because luxury requires the
service of slaves in the house. Now, helotism unites in the same persons
the slavery established among voluptuous peoples and the one
established among simple peoples.

“[Tacitus] Germania [25 J.

l2 Tacitus [Germania, 20] says, “You could not distinguish master from siave bv the delights
of life.”

CHAPTER II

What the laws ought to do in relation to slavery

But whatever the nature of slavery, civil laws must seek to remove, on
the one hand, its abuses, and on the other, its dangers.

254

The lam of civil slavery

CHAPTER 12

The abuse of slavery

In the Mohammedan states , 13 one is not only the master of the life and
goods of the female slaves, but also of what is called their virtue or their
honor. One of the misfortunes of these countries is that the larger part
of the nation exists only in order to serve the voluptuousness of the
other. This servitude is rewarded by the laziness that such slaves are
given to enjoy, which is yet another misfortune for the state.

This laziness makes the seraglios of the East 14 delightful places even
for those against whom they are made. People who fear only work can
find their happiness in these tranquil places. But one sees that in this
way one runs counter even to the spirit in which slavery is established.

Reason wants the power of the master not to extend beyond things
that are of service to him; slavery must be for utility and not for
voluptuousness. The laws of modesty are a part of natural right and
should be felt by all the nations in the world.

For if the law that preserves the modesty of slaves is good in these
states where unlimited power mocks everything, how good will it be in
monarchies, how good in republican states?

A provision of the law of the Lombards 15 seems good for all
governments. “If a master debauches the wife of his slave, both of them
will be free.” This tempering is admirable for preventing and checking
the incontinence of masters without too much severity.

I do not see that the Romans had a good police in this regard. They
gave rein to the incontinence of masters; in a way they even deprived
their slaves of the right of marriage. The slaves were the meanest part
of the nation, but mean as they were, it was good for them to have
mores, and further, by denying them marriages, one corrupted the
marriages of the citizens.

!3 See (John) Chardin, Voyages en Perse et autres lieux de I'Orient [“Voyage de Paris a Ispahan”;
2, 224; 1 8 1 1 ednj.

H See [John] Chardin [ Voyages en Pene et autres lieux de I’Orient }, vol. 2, “Description du
marche d’Isagour” (“Voyage de Paris a Ispahan”; 1, 345-347; 18 1 1 edn].

15 [Leges Langobardorum] bk. 1, tit. 32, para. 5 [Liut. 140).

255

Part 3

CHAPTER 13

The danger of a large number of slaves

Having a large number of slaves has different effects in the various
governments. It is not a burden in despotic government; political
slavery, established in the body of the state, makes civil slavery little felt.
Those who are called freemen are scarcely more free than those
without this status; and as these latter, whether eunuchs, freed men, or
slaves, have almost all matters of business in their hands, the condition
of a freeman and that of a slave are nearly alike. It is almost indifferent
whether few or many people there live in slavery.

But in moderate states, it is very important not to have too many
slaves. Political liberty makes civil liberty precious, and the one who is
deprived of the latter is also deprived of the former. He sees a happy
society of which he is not even a part; he finds security established for
others and not for himself; he feels that his master’s soul can expand,
and that his own soul is constantly constrained to sink. Nothing brings
the condition of the beasts closer than always to see freemen and not to
be one. Such people are the natural enemies of society, and it would be
dangerous for them to be numerous.

Therefore, one must not be astonished that in moderate govern-
ments the state has been so disturbed by the rebellion of slaves and that
this has happened so rarely 16 in despotic states.

16 The rebellion of the Mamelukes was a particular case: they were a body of militia which
usurped the empire.

CHAPTER 14

On armed slaves

It is less dangerous to arm slaves in a monarchy than in republics.
There a warrior people, a body of nobility, will sufficiently contain
armed slaves. In a republic, men who are citizens will scarcely be able to
contain people who, bearing arms, are the equals of the citizens.

The Goths who conquered Spain scattered throughout the country
and soon were very weak. They made three noteworthy regulations:

256

The laws of civil slavery

they abolished the former custom that prohibited them from allying
themselves with the Romans through marriage ; 17 they established that
all those freed from the fisc would go to war on pain of being reduced to
servitude ; 18 they ordered that each Goth would lead to war and arm a
tenth of his slaves . 19 This number was not very large by comparison
with the number who remained. In addition, these slaves led to war by
their master did not make up a separate body; they were in the army and
remained, so to speak, in the family.

11 Lex Wisigothorum , bk. 3, tit. 1, para. 1 £3.1.1].

18 Ibid. [Lex Wisigothorum], bk. 5, tit. 7, para. 20 [5.7.20].

i9 Ibid. [Lex Wisigothorum], bk. 9, tit. 1, para. 9 [9.2.9].

CHAPTER 15

Continuation of the same subject

When all in the nation are warriors, armed slaves are to be feared even
less.

By the law of the Alemanni, a slave who stole something that had
been put down 20 was subject to the penalty one would have inflicted on
a freeman, but, if he took it by violence , 21 he was obliged only to restore
the stolen thing. Among the Alemanni, actions whose principle was
courage and strength were not odious. They made use of their slaves in
their wars. In most republics, one has always sought to beat down the
courage of the slaves; the Alemanni, sure of themselves, thought of
increasing the audacity of their own; always armed, they feared nothing
from the slaves; these were the instruments of their brigandage or of
their glory.

20 Leges Alamannorum, chap. 5, para. 3 [B5.3].

21 Ibid. [Leges Alamannorum], chap. 5, para. 5 [B5.3], pervirtutem: “by strength.”

257

Part 3

chapter 16

Precautions to take in moderate governments

In the moderate state, the humanity one has for slaves will be able to
prevent the dangers one could fear from there being too many of them.
Men grow accustomed to anything, even to servitude, provided the
master is not harsher than the servitude. The Athenians treated their
slaves with great gentleness; one sees that the slaves did not disturb the
state in Athens, whereas they shook it in Lacedaemonia.

One sees that the first Romans were not at all uneasy about their
slaves. It was when they had lost every feeling of humanity for them that
one saw arise those slave wars that have been compared to the Punic
Wars . 22

Simple nations who are attached to work are ordinarily gentler
toward their slaves than those who have renounced work. The first
Romans lived, worked, and ate with their slaves; they were gentle and
fair to them; the greatest penalty they inflicted on them was to make
them walk before their neighbors with a forked stick on their backs.
Mores were enough to maintain the fidelity of slaves; they did not have
to have laws.

But when Rome expanded, when the slaves of the Romans were no
longer companions in their work but instruments of their luxury and
arrogance, laws were needed as there were no mores at all. There had
even to be terrible laws in order to establish security for these cruel
masters who lived among their slaves as if among their enemies.

One made the senatus-consult Silanianium and other laws 23 which
established that, when a master was killed, all the slaves under the same
roof or within earshot would without distinction be condemned to
death. Those who, in this case, gave refuge to a slave to save him were
punished as murderers . 24 Even the slave whose master had ordered
him to kill him 2S and who obeyed was guilty; the one who had not kept

22 Florus [Epitome rerum Romanorum], bk. 3 [2.7.2], says, “Sicily, more cruelly devastated by
the Slave War than by the Punic War.”

23 See all of the article de senatus consultu Silaniano et Claudiano quorum teslamenta ne
aperiantur [Corpus Juris Chilis, Digest 29.5].

24 Law 3, para. 12 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 29.5.3.12]; de senatus consultus Silaniano.

25 When Anthony commanded Eros to kill him this was not only a command to kill him but
also to kill himself, for, if he had obeyed, he would have been punished as the murderer of
his master.

258

The laws of civil slavery

the master from killing himself was punished . 26 If a master were killed
while traveling, one put to death 27 those who remained with him and
those who had fled. All these laws were applicable even to those whose
innocence was proven. Their purpose was to give the slaves a pro-
digious respect for their master. The laws were not dependent on civil
government but on a vice or imperfection in civil government. They
were not derived from the fairness of the civil laws because they were
contrary to the principles of the civil laws. They were properly founded
on the principle of war, except that the enemies were in the bosom of
the state. The senatus-consult Silanianium derived from the right of
nations, which wants a society, even an imperfect one, to preserve itself.

It is a misfortune in government when the magistracy sees itself thus
constrained to make cruel laws. Because obedience has been made
difficult, one is obliged to augment the penalty for disobedience or to
make faithfulness suspect. A prudent legislator avoids the misfortune
of becoming a terrifying legislator. Because the slaves among the
Romans could have no trust in the law, the law could have no trust in
them.

26 Law i, para. 22 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 29.5.1.22}; de senatu consultu Silaniano.
27 Law 1, para. 31, ibid. [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 29.5.1.3 1]; de senatu consultu Silaniano.

CHAPTER 17

Regulations to make between the master and the slaves

The magistrate should see to it that the slave is nourished and clothed;
this should be regulated by law.

The laws should take care that slaves are looked after in sickness and
in old age. Claudius 28 ordered that sick slaves who were abandoned by
their masters would be free if they escaped. This law secured their
liberty; it should also have secured their life.

When the law permits the master to take the life of his slave, it is a
right he should exercise as a judge and not as a master; the law must
order formalities, which remove the suspicion of a violent action.

In Rome when fathers were no longer permitted to put their children

28 Xiphilinus, in Claudio [Cass. Dio, Historia Romana, 60 (6i). 29.7; Xiph. 142.26-29].

259

to death, the magistrates imposed 29 the penalty that the father wanted
to prescribe. A like usage would be reasonable between master and
slaves in countries where masters have the right of life and death.

The law of Moses was very crude/ “If someone beats his slave and
the slave dies under his hand, he will be punished; but if the slave
survives a day or two, he will not be punished because it is his silver.”^
What a people, whose civil law ceased to cling to natural law!

According to a Greek law , 30 slaves treated too roughly by their
master could ask to be sold to another. In later times, there was a similar
law in Rome . 31 A master incensed with his slave and a slave incensed
with his master should be separated.

When a citizen mistreats the slave of another, the latter must be able
to go before a judge. The laws of Plato 32 and of most peoples take
natural defense away from slaves; therefore, they must be given civil
defense.

In Lacedaemonia, slaves could expect no justice for either insults or
injuries. The extremity of their unhappiness was that they were the
slaves not only of a citizen but also of the public; they belonged to
everyone and to one alone. In Rome one considered only the interest of
the master 33 in the harm done to a slave. In the application of the
Aquilian law, a wound inflicted on a beast and one inflicted on a slave
were confounded; attention was paid only to the reduction in their
price. In Athens 34 he who had mistreated the slave of another was
punished severely, sometimes even by death. The Athenian law, with
reason, did not want to add the loss of security to that of liberty.

29 See law 3 of the Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 8.46.3]; depatria pot estate, which is by the
Emperor Alexander [Severus].

30 Plutarch [Moralia] De supers tittone [i66d].

31 See the constitution of Antoninus Pius [Corpus Juris Civilis], Institutes, bk. 1, tit. 7 [1.7; de
lege Fufia caninia sublata].

32 [Plato, Lam] bk. 9 [865c— d]. (This may not be the clearest interpretation of the Plato
passage, but I am convinced this is the one M. had in mind. Consider footnote 26. 1 in bk.
26, chap. 3.]

33 This was also often the spirit of the laws of the peoples who came from Germany, as can be
seen in their codes.

34 Demosthenes, Orationes, Contra Midiam, p. 610, Frankfurt, 1604 edn [21.47].

'The word here is rude, meaning both primitive and hard.
^Exodus 20.20-21.

The laws of civil slavery

chapter 18

On freeing slaves

One certainly feels that when there are many slaves in a republican
government, many of them must be freed. The trouble is that, if there
are too many slaves, they cannot be contained; if there are too many
freed men, they cannot survive and they become a burden to the
republic; moreover, the republic can be equally endangered by too
many freed men and by too many slaves. Therefore, the laws must keep
an eye on these two drawbacks.

The various laws and the senatus-consults made in Rome for and
against slaves, sometimes to hamper, sometimes to facilitate, the
freeing of slaves, make their uneasiness in this regard easy to see.
There were even times when one did not dare make laws. When, under
Nero , 35 the senate was asked to permit the patrons to return ungrateful
freed men to servitude, the emperor wrote that particular suits were to
be judged and nothing general was to be enacted.

I scarcely know how to say which regulations a good republic should
make on this matter; it depends too much on circumstances. Here are
some reflections.

Slaves must not be freed suddenly in considerable numbers by a
general law. One knows that, among the Volscians , 36 when the freed
men became masters of the voting, they made an abominable law giving
themselves the right to be the first to lie with girls who married freeborn
men.

There are various ways to introduce new citizens into the republic
imperceptibly. The laws can favor savings and put the slaves in a
position to buy their liberty. They can set the term of servitude, as did
those of Moses which limited the servitude of Hebrew slaves to six
years . 37 It is easy each year to free a certain number of slaves among
those who, by their age, health, or industry, will have the means to earn
a living. One can even heal the ill at its root; as a great number of slaves
are bound to the various employments given them, transferring to the
freeborn a part of these employments, for example, commerce or
navigation, decreases the number of slaves.

35 Tacitus, Annales, bk. 13 [13.27].

36 [Johann] Freinsheim, Supplementorum Lwianorum, decade 2, bk. 5 [15.14].

37 Exodus, chap. 21 [21.2].

261

Part 3

When there are many freed men, the civil laws must specify what
they owe to their patron, or the contract of emancipation must specify
these duties for them.

One feels that their condition should be more favored in the civil
state than in the political state because even in popular government,
power should not fall into the hands of the common people.

In Rome, where there were so many freed men, the political laws in
their regard were admirable. They were given little and excluded from
almost nothing. They certainly took part in legislation, but they almost
never influenced the resolutions that were taken. They could hold
posts and even belong to the priesthood , 38 but this privilege was in a way
rendered empty by the disadvantages they had in the elections. They
had the right to enter the militia; but to be a soldier one had to be in a
certain census. Nothing kept freed men 39 from uniting by marriage
with freeborn families, but they were not permitted alliances with
senators’ families. Finally, their children were freeborn, although they
themselves were not.

38 Tacitus, v 4 nna/«, bk. 3 [13.27].

39 Harangue of Augustus, in Cass. Dio [Historia Romana\, bk. 56 [56.7.2].

CHAPTER 19

On freed men and eunuchs

Thus in the government of many, it is often useful for the condition of
the freed men to be but slightly below that of the freeborn and for the
laws to work to remove their aversion to their condition. But in the
government of one alone, while luxury and arbitrary power reign, there
is nothing to be done in this regard. The freed men are almost always
above the freemen. They dominate in the court of the prince and in the
palaces of the important men; and, as they have studied the weaknesses
of their master and not his virtues, they make him reign not by his
virtues but by his weaknesses. Such men were the freed men in Rome
at the time of the emperors.

When the principal slaves are eunuchs, despite the privileges
accorded them, they can scarcely be regarded as freed men. For, as
they cannot have families, they are bound to a family by their nature,
and it is only by a kind of fiction that one can regard them as citizens.

262

The laws of civil slavery

Nevertheless, there are countries where they are given all the
magistracies: “In Tonkin ,” 40 Dampier says, “all the civil and military
mandarins are eunuchs .” 41 They have no family, and although they are
naturally avaricious, the master or prince profits in the end from their
very avarice.

The same Dampier 42 tells us that, in this country, eunuchs cannot do
without wives and that they marry. This law permitting them to marry
can be founded only, on the one hand, on the consideration one has
there for such people, and, on the other, on the scorn one has there for
women.

Thus, one entrusts magistracies to these people because they have
no family, and yet they are permitted to marry because they have
magistracies.

It is then that the remaining senses obstinately want to make up for
those that are lost, and the enterprises of despair are a kind of
enjoyment. Thus in Milton’s work, that spirit, to whom only desires
remain, being filled with his degradation, wants to make use even of his
powerlessness/

In the history of China, one sees a great number of laws that remove
eunuchs from all civil and military employments, but they always return
to them. It seems that eunuchs are a necessary ill in the East.

^[William Dampier, Voyages] vol. 3, p. 91 [vol. 2, pt. 1, chap. 4; 2, 14; 1906 edn].

41 It was formerly thus in China. The two Mohammedan Arabs who traveled there in the
ninth century say “the eunuch” when they want to speak to the governor in a town.
[Eusebe Renaudot, Anciennes relations des Indes etde la Chine, pp. 29, 60-61; 1718 edn.]

42 [William Dampier, Voyages] vol. 3, p. 94 [vol. 2, pt. 1, chap. 4; 2, 15, 1906 edn.]

*John Milton, Paradise Lost.

263

BOOK 16

How the laws of domestic slavery are
related to the nature of the climate

CHAPTER I

On domestic servitude

Slaves are established for the family rather than in the family. Thus, I
shall distinguish their servitude from that in which women are held in
some countries and which I shall call domestic servitude proper.

CHAPTER 2

That, in the countries of the South, there is a natural
inequality between the sexes

Women are marriageable in hot climates at eight, nine, and ten years of
age; thus, childhood and marriage almost always go together there . 1
They are old at twenty: thus reason in women is never found with
beauty there. When beauty' demands empire, reason refuses it; when
reason could achieve it, beauty exists no longer. Whmen should be held
in dependence, for reason cannot procure for them in their old age an
empire that beauty did not give them even in youth. Therefore, when
reason does not oppose it, it is very simple there for a man to leave his
wife to take another and for polygamy to be introduced.

In temperate countries, where women’s charms are better

‘Mohammed wed Cadigha when she was five, and took her to bed at eight. In the hot
countries of Arabia and the Indies, girls are nubile at eight and give birth the following
year. [Humphrey] Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Displayed in the Life of
Mahomet [p. 30; 1718 edn). [M. is in error; he should be referring to Ayesha, not Cadigha.)
One sees women in the kingdom of Algeria give birth at nine, ten, and eleven years.
Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume d’Alger, p. 61 [chap. 2, “Des Habitans du Royaume
d’AIger. Des Maures”; p. 61; 1720 edn].

The laws of domestic slavery

preserved, where they become marriageable later, and where they have
children at a more advanced age, their husbands’ old age more or less
follows on their own; and, as they have more reason and knowledge
there when they marry, if only because they have lived longer, a kind of
equality between the two sexes has naturally been introduced, and
consequently the law permitting only a single wife.

In cold countries, the almost necessary use of strong drink
establishes intemperance among the men; so women, who have a
natural reserve in this respect because they must always defend
themselves, again have the advantage of reason over the men.

Nature, which has distinguished men by strength and by reason, has
put no term to their power but the term of their strength and their
reason. She has given women charms and has wanted their ascendancy
to end with these charms, but in hot countries these are found only at
the beginning and never through the course of their lives.

Thus, the law permitting only one wife has more relation to the
physical aspect of the climate of Europe than to the physical aspect of
the climate of Asia. It is one of the reasons why Mohammedanism
found it so easy to establish itself in Asia and so difficult to spread into
Europe, why Christianity has been maintained in Europe and
destroyed in Asia, and why, finally, the Mohammedans make so much
progress in China and the Christians so little. Human reasons are
always subordinate to that supreme cause that does all that it wants and
makes use of whatever it wants.

Certain reasons peculiar to Valentinian 2 made him allow polygamy in
the Empire. That law, which was violent for our climates, was removed
by Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius . 3

2 SeeJordanes, Romana [#307; MGH Auct., vol. 5, p. 39] and the ecclesiastical historians.
3 See law 7 [Corpus Juris Crvilis] Code [1.9.7]; deludaeis et caelicolis, and Novellae 18, chap. 5
[18.5].

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CHAPTER 3

That having multiple wives depends greatly on
the support for them

Although a large number of wives depends much on the husband’s
wealth in countries where polygamy has been established, still one
cannot say that wealth causes the establishment of polygamy in a state:
poverty can have the same effect, as I shall say when speaking of
savages.

In powerful nations polygamy is less a luxury than the occasion for a
great luxury. In hot climates, one has fewer needs ; 4 it costs less to
support a wife and children. Therefore, the number of wives one can
have is greater there.

4 In Ceylon a man lives for ten sous a month; people there eat only rice and fish. Recueil des
voyages quiontservidl'etablissementde la Compagniedes Indes, vol. 2,pt. i [“Divers memoires
touchant les Indes Orientales, premier discours”; 2, 258; 1703 edn; 2, 228; 1725 edn].

CHAPTER 4

On polygamy , its various circumstances

According to calculations made in various places in Europe, more boys
are born than girls , 5 whereas accounts from Asia 6 and Africa 7 tell us
that more girls are bom there than boys. Therefore the law permitting
only a single wife in Europe and the one permitting several in Asia and
in Africa had a certain relation to the climate.

In the cold climates of Asia, as in Europe, more boys are bom than
girls. This is, say the Lamas , 8 the reason for the law in cold countries
that allows a woman here to have several husbands . 9

s Mr. Arbuthnot finds that in England the number of boys exceeds that of girls; it has been
mistakenly concluded that it was the same in all climates.

6 See [Engelbert] Kaempfer, who reports an enumeration of Meaco, in which one finds
182,072 males and 223,573 females [Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan together
with a description of the Kingdom of Siam, 16QO-1692, bk. 2, chap. 5; 1, 332; 1906 edn],

1 See [William] Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea , pt. 2 [pp. 223-224; 1967 edn], on the
country of Ante.

8 [Jean Baptiste] du Halde, vol. 4, p. 46, Description de I’Empire de la Chine, [“Observations
sur le Thibit,” 4, 572 H; 4, 461 P; 4, 443-444 L].

9 Hasan ibn Yazid, Abu Zaid al Sirafi, one of the two Mohammedan Arabs who went to the

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But I do not believe that there are many countries where the
disproportion is so great that it requires the introduction of a law
permitting several wives or one permitting several husbands. It means
only that having many wives or even many husbands is not as far from
nature in certain countries as in others.

I admit that if what the accounts tell us were true, that in Bantam 10
there are ten women for every man, it would be a very particular case of
polygamy.

In all this I do not justify usages, but I give the reasons for them.

Indies and China in the ninth century, takes this usage for prostitution. This is because
nothing else ran so counter to Mohammedan ideas. [Eusebe Rtnzudot, Anciens relations
des Indes et de la Chine, 56-57, 106, 109; 1718 edn.]
l0 Recueii des voyages qui ont servi a I'etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, vol. 1 [“Premier
voyage des Hollandais aux Indes Orientales,” 1, 383; 1702 edn; 1, 347; 1725 edn].

CHAPTER 5

A reason for a law of Malabar

On the coast of Malabar, in the caste of the Nairs , 11 men can have only
one wife, whereas a woman can have several husbands. I believe one
can discover the origin of this custom. The Nairs are a caste of nobles
who are the soldiers of all these nations. In Europe one keeps soldiers
from marrying; in Malabar, where the demands of the climate are
greater, one has been content to make marriage as slight an encum-
brance as possible for them; one wife has been given to several men,
which diminishes to that degree the attachment to a family and the
cares of a household and leaves these people their military spirit.

11 Francois Pyrard, Voyage, chap. 27 [vol. 1, chap. 27; 1, 384, 372; 1887-90 edn], Lettres
edifiantes et curieuses, 3 and 10 [Lettre duR. P. Tachard, Pondichery, February 16, 170253,
187-189; 1713 edn, Lettre du P. de la Lane, Pondichery, January 13, 1709; 10, 22-23;
1732 edn], on the Malleami of the coast of Malabar. This is regarded as an abuse of the
military profession and, as Pyrard says, a woman of the Brahmin caste would never have
several husbands.

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chapter6

On polygamy in itself

Considering polygamy in general, independent of the circumstances
that can make it somewhat tolerable, it is not useful to mankind or to
either of the sexes, either to the one which abuses or to the one abused.
Nor is it useful to children; and one of its major drawbacks is that the
father and mother cannot have the same affection for their children; a
father cannot love twenty children as a mother loves two. It is much
worse when a woman has several husbands, for then paternal love
depends only on the opinion which a father can believe if he wants, or
which others can believe, that certain children belong to him.

It is said that the king of Morocco has in his seraglio white women,
black women, and yellow women. The unfortunate man scarcely needs
a color!

Possessing many wives does not always prevent one from desiring 12
the wife of another; with avarice as with luxury, thirst increases with the
acquisition of treasures.

In the time of Justinian many philosophers who had been hampered
by Christianity withdrew to the court of Chosroes in Persia." What
struck them most, says Agathias , 13 was that the people to whom
polygamy was permitted did not even abstain from adultery.

Having multiple wives (who could guess it!)* leads to the love that
nature disavows; this is because one sort of dissoluteness always entails
another. During the revolution in Constantinople, when the sultan
Ahmed was deposed, the accounts told that the people, pillaging the
house of the kehaya/ found not a single woman. They say that it has
come to the point that most of the seraglios in Algiers 14 have none.

,2 This is why women in the East are so carefully hidden.

13 [Agathias] Historiarum , On the Life and Actions of Justinian, p. 403 [2.30].

14 LaugierdeTassy , His toire du royaume d Alger [ chap. 5,“Des Turcs du Royaume d’ Alger”;
p. 80; 1720 ednl.

"This refers to Justinian’s closing of the schools of Athens, 526 a.d. ca.
b Translators’ parentheses.

kehaya was a Turkish viceroy, deputy agent, etc., or a local governor, or a village
chief.

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The laws of domestic slavery

chapter 7

On equality of treatment in the case of multiple wives

From the law concerning multiple wives follows the law concerning the
equality of their treatment. Mohammed, who permits four, wants
everything to be equal among them; food, clothing, and conjugal duty.
This law is also established in the Maldives , 15 where one can have three
wives.

The law of Moses 16 even wants the man, married by his father to a
slave, who later marries a free woman, to deny her nothing in clothing,
food, or duties. One could give more to the new wife, but the first was
not to have less.

15 Francois Pyrard, Voyages, chap. 12 (bk. 1, chap. 12; 1, 151; 1887-1889 edn).
15 Exodus, chap. 21, w. 10-11 [21.10-11).

CHAPTER 8

On the separation of women from men

One consequence of polygamy is that in the rich and voluptuous
nations one has a very great number of wives. Their separation from the
men and their enclosure follow naturally from their great number.
Domestic order requires it to be so; an insolvent debtor seeks to hide
from the pursuit of his creditors. There are climates in which the
physical aspect has such strength that morality can do practically
nothing. Leave a man with a woman; a temptation is a fall, attack is
sure, and resistance null. In these countries there must be bolted doors
instead of precepts.

One of China’s classics considers it a prodigy of virtue for a man to
be alone in a distant apartment with a woman and not do violence to
her . 17

17 < ‘To come upon a treasure of which one makes oneself master, or a beautiful woman alone
in an isolated apartment, to hear the voice of one’s enemy who will perish if one does not
give aid: admirable touchstone.” Translation of a Chinese work on morals, in [Jean
Baptiste] du Halde, [Description de I'Empire de la Chine], vol. 3, p. 15 1 [“Caracteres ou
Moeurs des Chinois,” 3, 183 H; 3, 15 1 PJ.

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Partj

CHAPTER 9

A link between domestic government and politics

In a republic, the condition of the citizens is limited, equal, gentle, and
moderate; the effects of public liberty are felt throughout. Empire over
women could not be as well exercised; and, when climate required this
empire, the government of one alone was the most suitable. This is one
of the reasons it has always been difficult to establish popular govern-
ment in the East.

On the other hand, the servitude of women is very much in
conformity with the genius of despotic government, which likes to
abuse everything. Thus in Asia domestic servitude and despotic
government have been seen to go hand in hand in every age. In a
government in which one requires tranquility above all and in which
extreme subordination is called peace, women must be enclosed; their
intrigues would be disastrous for the husband. A government that has
not the time to examine the conduct of its subjects is suspicious of it
simply because it appears and makes itself felt.

Let us assume for a moment that the fickleness of spirit and
indiscretions of our women, what pleases and displeases them, their
passions, both great and small, were transfered to an Eastern govern-
ment along with the activity and liberty they have among us: what father
of a family could be tranquil for a moment? Suspects everywhere,
enemies everywhere; the state would be shaken, one would see rivers of
blood flowing.

CHAPTER 10

Principle of morality in the East

In the case of multiple wives the more the family ceases to be a unity,
the more the laws should reunite the detached parts to a center, and the
more various the interests, the better it is for the laws to return them to
one interest.

This is done chiefly by enclosure. Wives should not only be
separated from men by their enclosure in the house, but they should
also be separated within that same enclosure, so that each one becomes

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The lam of domestic slavery

almost a particular family within the family. Women’s entire practice of
morality, modesty, chastity, discretion, silence, peace, dependency,
respect, love derives from this; in sum here their feelings are univer-
sally directed to that which is best in the world by its nature, which is
one’s exclusive attachment to one’s family.

By nature women have to perform so many duties proper to them
that one cannot separate them enough from everything that could give
them other ideas, from everything one treats as amusement and from
everything one calls business.

In the various states of the East, the mores are purer as the enclosure
of women is stricter. In large states, there are necessarily great lords.
The greater their means, the more they are in a position to keep women
in a strict enclosure and prevent them from returning to society. This is
why women have such admirable mores in the empires of the Turks,
Persians, Moguls, China and Japan.

One cannot say the same of the Indies, which have been divided into
an infinity of little states by the infinite number of islands and the
situation of the terrain, and which are rendered despotic by a great
number of causes that I have no time to record here.

There, only the destitute plunder and only the destitute are
plundered. Those whom one calls important men have only scant
means; those whom one calls rich men have scarcely more than their
sustenance. The enclosure of women cannot be strict there; one cannot
take such careful precautions to contain them; their mores are
inconceivably corrupt.

It is there that one sees the point to which the vices of climate, left in
great liberty, can carry disorder. There nature has a strength, and
modesty, a weakness that is incomprehensible. In Patani , 18 women’s
lust 19 is so great that men are constrained to make a kind of rigging to
shield themselves from women’s enterprises. According to Mr.
Smith , 20 things are no better in the little kingdoms of Guinea. It seems

m Recuei! des voyages qui ont servi a. I’etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 1 96
(“Voyage de T. van Neck”; 2, 222; 1703 edn; 2, 192; 1725 edn].

19 In the Maldives, fathers give their daughters in marriage at the age of ten or eleven because
it is a great sin, they say, to let them suffer the need for men. Francois Pyrard, Voyages,
chap. 12 (vol. 1, chap. 12; 1, 152; 1887-1890 edn]. In Bantam, as soon as a daughter is
thirteen or fourteen, she must be married if she is not to lead a disorderly life. Recueil des
voyages qui ont servi a I’elablissement de la Compagnie des Indes, p. 348 (“Voyage des
Hollandais aux Indes,” i, 384; 1702 edn; 1, 348; 1725 edn],

20 [William Smith] A New Voyage to Guinea, pt. 2, p. 192 of the translation [pp. 221-222;
1967 edn]. “When the women,” he says, “meet a man, they seize him and threaten to

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that in these countries, the two sexes lose everything, including the laws
proper to them.

denounce him to their husbands if he disregards them. They slip into a man’s bed, awaken
him, and if he refuses them, they threaten to have him caught in the act.”

CHAPTER II

On domestic servitude independent of polygamy

In certain places in the East, it is not only multiple wives that require
their enclosure; it is the climate. Those who read of the horrors,
crimes, perfidies, atrocities, poisons, and murders caused by the liberty
of women in Goa and in the establishments of the Portuguese in the
Indies where religion permits only one wife, and who will compare
these to the innocence and purity of the mores of wives in Turkey, in
Persia, among the Moguls, in China, and in Japan, will see that it is
often as necessary to separate women from men when there is only one
wife as when there are many.

It is climate that should decide these things. What would be the use
of enclosing wives in our northern countries, where their mores are
naturally good, where all their passions are calm, scarcely active, and
scarcely refined, where love has such a regulated empire over the heart
that the slightest police is sufficient to lead them?

One is fortunate to live in these climates that allow communication
between people, where the sex with the most charms seems to adorn
society and where women, keeping themselves for the pleasures of one
man, yet serve for the diversion of all.

CHAPTER 12

On natural modesty

All nations are equally agreed in attaching scorn to the incontinence of
women; this is because nature has spoken to all nations. She has
established defense, she has established attack; and, having put desires
into both sides, she has placed temerity in the one and shame in the

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other. She has given individuals long periods of time to preserve
themselves and only brief moments for their perpetuation.

Therefore, it is not true that incontinence follows the laws of nature;
on the contrary, it violates them. It is modesty and discretion that follow
these laws.

Besides, it is in the nature of intelligent beings to feel their
imperfections; therefore, nature has given us modesty, that is, shame
for our imperfections.

Therefore, when the physical power of certain climates violates the
natural law of the two sexes and that of intelligent beings, it is for the
legislator to make civil laws which forcefully oppose the nature of the
climate and reestablish the primitive laws.

CHAPTER 13

On jealousy

Among peoples one must distinguish between jealousy that comes
from passion and jealousy from custom, mores, or laws. The former is
an ardent fever that devours; the latter, cold, but sometimes terrible,
can be joined to indifference and scorn.

The first, which is abuse of love, is bom of love itself. The other
depends solely on the mores, the national manners, the laws of the
country, the morality, and sometimes even the religion . 21

Jealousy is almost always the result of the physical force of the
climate, and it is the remedy for this physical force.

21 Mohammed recommended to his disciples that they keep their wives safe; a certain Iman
said the same thing on dying, and Confucius too preached this doctrine. (John Chardin,
Voyages, “Description du Gouvemment”, chap. 12, “Du Palais des femmes du Roi”; 6,
9-10; i8tr edn.j

CHAPTER 14

On household government in the East

One changes wives in the East so frequently that the domestic
government cannot be theirs. Therefore, the eunuchs are put in charge
of it; they are given all the keys, and they arrange the business of the

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Part 3

house. “In Persia,” says M. Chardin, “wives are given their clothing as
it would be given to children.”'* Thus that concern which seems to suit
them so well, that concern which everywhere else is the first of their
concerns, is not theirs.

d ] ohn Chardin, Voyages, “Description du Go uvemment,” chap. 12, “Du palais des
femmes du roi;” 6,30; 1811 edn.

CHAPTER 15

On divorce and repudiation

A difference between divorce and repudiation is that divorce occurs by
mutual consent on the occasion of a mutual incompatibility, whereas
repudiation is done by the will and for the advantage of one of the two
parties, independendy of the will and the advantage of the other.

It is sometimes so necessary for wives to repudiate their husbands
and always so trying for them to do it, that it is a hard law that gives this
right to men without giving it to their wives. A husband is the master of
the house; he has a thousand ways to hold his wives to their duty or to
return them to it, and it seems that, in his hands, repudiation is only a
new abuse of his power. But a wife who repudiates her husband
exercises only a sad remedy. It is always a great misfortune for her to be
constrained to go and look for a second husband when she has lost most
of her charms while married to another. One of the advantages of
youthful charm in wives is that, at an advanced age, a husband is
inclined to kindness by the memory of his pleasures.

Therefore, it is a general rule that in all countries where the law
grants men the faculty of repudiation, it should also grant it to wives.
Further, in the climates where wives live in domestic slavery, it seems
that the law should permit wives repudiation and husbands divorce
only.

When wives are in a seraglio, the husband cannot repudiate one of
them because of the incompatibility of mores; it is the husband’s fault if
the mores are incompatible.

Repudiation by reason of barrenness can occur only in the case of a
single wife ; 22 when one has several wives, this reason is not of any
importance for the husband.

22 This does not mean that repudiation by reason of barrenness is permitted in Christianity.

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The laws of domestic slavery

The law of the Maldives 23 allows one to take back a wife one has
repudiated. The law of Mexico 24 prohibited them from coming back
together on penalty of death. The law of Mexico was more sensible
than the law of the Maldives; even at the time of dissolving a marriage,
the Mexican law thought about its eternity; whereas the law of the
Maldives seems to trifle equally with marriage and repudiation.

The Mexican law granted divorce only. This was an additional
reason not to allow people to reunite who had voluntarily separated.
Repudiation seems rather to stem from a quickness of spirit and some
passion of the soul; divorce seems to be a matter of counsel.

Ordinarily divorce has great political utility, and as for its civil utility,
it is established for the husband and the wife and is not always favorable
to the children.

23 Franqois Pyrard, Voyages [vol. i, chap. 12; 1, 153; 1887-1890 edn]. She is taken rather
than another because there are fewer expenses in this case.

24 [Antoine de] Solis [y Rivadeneyra], History of the Conquest [of Mexico by the Spaniards], p.
499 [bk. 3, chap. 17; 345-355; *973 edn].

CHAPTER 16

On repudiation and divorce among the Romans

Romulus allowed the husband to repudiate his wife if she had
committed adultery, prepared poison, or tampered with the keys. He
did not give wives the right to repudiate their husbands. Plutarch 25 calls
this a very harsh law.

As the law in Athens 26 gave the wife as well as the husband the faculty
of repudiating, and as one sees that the wives had obtained this right
among the earliest Romans in spite of the law of Romulus, it is clear
that this institution was one of those brought from Athens by the
Roman deputies and that it was put into the Law of Twelve Tables.

Cicero 27 says that the causes of repudiation came from the Law of
Twelve Tables. Therefore, one cannot doubt that this law had
increased the number of causes for repudiation established by
Romulus.

25 [Plutarch, Vit.] Romulus [22.3]. 26 It was one of Solon’s laws.

27 [Cicero] Philippicae 2 [2.28.69]. “He has ordered his actress to take up her own property
[this constituted divorce]; he based his case on the Twelve Tables” [L.].

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Part 3

The faculty of divorce was also a provision, or at least a consequence
of the Law of Twelve Tables. For as soon as the wife or the husband
separately had the right of repudiation, they would all the more be able
to separate by agreement and by a mutual will.

The law did not require one to give any causes for divorce. 28 This is
because, by the nature of the thing, there must be causes for repudi-
ation and not for divorce; for when the law establishes causes that can
dissolve a marriage, mutual incompatibility is the strongest of all.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 29 Valerius Maximus, 30 and Aulus Gel-
lius 31 report a fact that does not seem probable to me; they say that,
although in Rome one had the faculty of repudiating one’s wife, there
was such respect for the auspices that in 5 20 years 32 no one had used
this right until Carvilius Ruga repudiated his wife as a consequence of
her barrenness. But simply knowing the nature of the human spirit is to
feel what a prodigy it would be if the law that had given the whole
people such a right was used by no one. Coriolanus, on going into exile,
counseled his wife to marry a happier man than himself. 33 We have just
seen that the Law of Twelve Tables and the mores of the Romans
greatly extended the law of Romulus. Why would there be these
extensions if one had never used the faculty of repudiating? Moreover,
if the citizens had such respect for the auspices that they never
repudiated their wives, why would the Roman legislators have had less?
How did the law constandy corrupt the mores?

By comparing two passages in Plutarch, one will see the element of
marvel in the fact in question disappear. The royal law 34 permitted the
husband to repudiate in the three cases mentioned. “And it wanted,”
says Plutarch, 35 “anyone who repudiated in the other cases to be
obliged to give half his goods to his wife and to dedicate the other half to
Ceres.” Therefore, one could repudiate in any case by submitting to

“Justinian changed this. [Corpus Juris Crvilis] Navellae 1 17, chap. 10 [1 17.10].

29 [Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom.] bk. 2 {2.25.7].

30 [Valerius Maximus, Factotum et dictorum memorabilium ], bk. 2, chap. 4 [2.1.4],

31 [Aulus Gellius, Noctium Atticarum], bk. 4, chap. 3 [4.3].

32 According to Dion. Hal. [Ant . Rom., 2.25.7] and Valerius Maximus [2.14]; and 523
[231 B.C.] according to Aulus Gellius [Noctium Atticarum 4.3.2]; M. has confused his
sources: Aulus Gellius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus agree on the date of 23 1 b.c.,
Valerius dates the event at 604 B.c.

33 See the discourse of Veturia, in Dion. Hal. [Ant. Rom.], bk. 8 [8.41 .4].

34 Plutarch [Vit.], Romulus [22.3].

35 Ibid. [Plutarch, Vit., Romulus 22.3.]

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The laws of domestic slavery

the penalty. No one did it before Carvilius Ruga, 36 “who,” as Plutarch
goes on to say, 37 “repudiated his wife for barrenness 230 years after
Romulus;” that is, he repudiated her 71 years before the Law of
Twelve Tables, which extended the power to repudiate as well as the
causes for repudiation.

The authors to whom I have referred say that Carvilius Ruga loved
his wife but that because of her barrenness the censors made him take
an oath that he would repudiate her so that he could give children to the
republic and that this made him odious to the people. The genius of the
Roman people must be known in order to reveal the true cause of the
hatred they conceived for Carvilius. Carvilius did not fall into disgrace
with the people for repudiating his wife; that is a thing that did not
disturb them. But Carvilius had sworn an oath to the censors that, given
the barrenness of his wife, he would repudiate her in order to give
children to the republic. The people saw that this was a yoke that the
censors were going to put on them. I shall show later in this work 38 the
repugnance they always had for such regulations. But where could such
a contradiction between these authors have begun? Here Plutarch has
examined a fact and the others have told of a marvel.

36 In fact, sterility is not indicated as a cause in the law of Romulus. It seems likely that it was
not subject to the penalty of confiscation, as it followed the order of the censors.

- ,7 In [Plutarch, Vit.] The Comparison of Theseus and Romulus [6.3].

38 In bk. 23, chap. 21 [below].

277

BOOK 17

How the laws of political servitude are
related to the nature of the climate

CHAPTER I

On political servitude

Political servitude depends no less on the nature of the climate than do
civil and domestic servitude, as will be shown.

CHAPTER 2

Differences between peoples in relation to courage

We have already said that great heat enervates the strength and courage
of men and that there is in cold climates a certain strength of body and
spirit that makes men capable of long, arduous, great, and daring
actions. This is noticeable not only from nation to nation but even from
one part of the same country to another. The peoples of northern
China 1 are more courageous than those of the south; the peoples of
southern Korea 2 are not as courageous as those of the north.

Therefore, one must not be surprised that the cowardice of the
peoples of hot climates has almost always made them slaves and that the
courage of the peoples of cold climates has kept them free. This is an
effect that derives from its natural cause.

This is also found to be true in America; the despotic empires of
Mexico and Peru were near the equator, and almost all the small free
peoples were and still are toward the poles.

' (Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de VEmpiredela Chine, “Province de Pe Tcheli”], vol.
t, p. 1 12 [i, 1 33-134 H; 1, 1 12 P; 1, 1 11 L].

2 So say the Chinese books. Ibid. [Jean Baptiste duHald t. Description de VEmpiredela Chine,
“Histoire de la Coree”], vol. 4, p. 448 [4, 557 H; 4, 448 P; 4, 423 Lj.

The laws of political servitude

CHAPTER 3

On the climate of Asia

Accounts tell us 3

that the north of Asia, that vast continent extending from about the
fortieth parallel to the pole and from the border of Muscovy to the
Eastern Ocean, has a very cold climate; that this immense terrain is
divided from west to east by a chain of mountains that puts Siberia
to the north and Greater Tartary to the south; that the climate of
Siberia is so cold that, although the Russians have settlements
along the Irtysh, they cultivate nothing there; that nothing grows in
this country but a few small fir trees and shrubs; that the natives of
the country are divided into destitute tribes like those of Canada;
that the reason for this cold is, on the one hand, the elevation of the
terrain, and on the other, that as one goes from south to north the
mountains level out and the north wind blows everywhere
unobstructed; and that, when this wind that makes Novaya Zemlya
uninhabitable blows in Siberia, it makes it a wasteland. In Europe,
on the other hand, the mountains of Norway and Lapland are
admirable bulwarks shielding the countries of the north from this
wind; that thus in Stockholm, which is at about 59 degrees latitude,
the terrain can produce fruits, grains, and plants; and that around
Abo, which is at 61 degrees north, just as at the 63rd and 64th
degree, there are silver mines and the terrain is quite fertile.

We see further in the accounts

that Greater Tartary, which is to the south of Siberia, is also very
cold; that the country is not cultivated; that only pastures for herds
are found there; that as in Iceland some bushes but not trees grow
there; that close to China and the Moguls there are some countries
where a kind of millet grows, but where neither wheat nor rice can
ripen; that there are scarcely any spots in Chinese Tartary, at the
43rd, 44th, and 45th parallel, where it does not freeze seven or
eight months a year; so that it is as cold as Iceland although it
should be warmer than the south of France; that there are no

3 See the Receuil de Voyages au Nord, vol. 8 (“Les moeurs et usages des Ostiackes,” 8, 389-
392; 1727 edn]; [Ebulgazi Bahadir Han, Khan of Khorezm] Histoire genealogique des Tatars
[Bentinck’s note, pt. 2, chap. 12, “De la tribu des Moguls,” 1, 127-129; 1726 edn]; and
Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde, Description de I’Empire de la Chine, vol. 4 [“Voiage du Pere
Gerbillon en Tartarie”; 4, 103-528 H; 4, 87-422 P; 4, 214-380 L].

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towns, except four or five near the Eastern Ocean and some that
the Chinese have built close to China for political reasons; that in
the remainder of Greater Tartary there are only a few located in
the Boucharies, Turkistan, and Charizme; that the reason for this
extreme cold is found in the nature of the terrain, which is nitrous,
full of saltpeter, and sandy, as well as in its elevation. Father
Verbiest had found that a certain spot eighty leagues north of the
Great Wall, toward the source of the Kavamhuram, that rose three
thousand geometric feet above the coast of the ocean near Peking;
that this elevation 4 is the cause for the fact that, although almost all
the great rivers of Asia have their source in the countryside, it
nevertheless lacks water, so it can be inhabited only near the rivers
and lakes.

These facts stated, I reason thus: Asia has no temperate zone,
properly so called, and the places situated in a very cold climate there
are immediately adjacent to those that are in a very warm climate, that
is, Turkey, Persia, the Mogul Empire, China, Korea, and japan.

In Europe, on the other hand, the temperate zone is very broad,
although the climates within it are very different from each other, as
there is no relation between the climate of Spain and Italy and that of
Norway and Sweden. But as the climate there grows colder gradually as
one goes from south to north approximately in proportion to the
latitude of each country, it happens that there each country is very like
its neighbor, that there is not a notable difference between them, and
that, as I have just said, the temperate zone is very broad.

From this, it follows that in Asia the strong and weak nations face
each other; the brave and active warrior peoples are immediately
adjacent to effeminate, lazy and timid peoples; therefore, one must be
the conquered and the other the conqueror. In Europe, on the other
hand, strong nations face the strong; those that are adjacent have
almost the same amount of courage. This is the major reason for the
weakness of Asia and the strength of Europe, for the liberty of Europe
and the servitude of Asia: a cause that I think has never before been
observed. This is why liberty never increases in Asia, whereas in
Europe it increases or decreases according to the circumstances.

Although the Muscovite nobility was reduced to servitude by one of
its princes, one will always see there marks of impatience that the
southern climates do not produce. Did we not see aristocratic govem-

4 Tartary is, then, a kind of high plateau.

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The laws of political servitude

ment established there briefly? Although another kingdom in the north
has lost its laws, one can trust to the climate that it has not lost them
irrevocably.

CHAPTER 4

A consequence of this

What we have just said agrees with the events of history. Asia has been
subjugated thirteen times; eleven times by the peoples of the North,
twice by those of the South. In the distant past, the Scythians
conquered it three times, then the Medes and the Persians once each;
then the Greeks, the Arabs, the Moguls, the Turks, the Tartars, the
Persians, and the Afghans. I speak only of upper Asia and I say nothing
of the invasions made in the southern part, which has continually
suffered great revolutions.

In Europe, on the other hand, we know of only four great changes
since the establishment of the Greek and Phoenician colonies: the first,
caused by the Roman conquests; the second, by the inundations of the
barbarians who destroyed these same Romans; the third, by the
victories of Charlemagne; and the last, by the Norman invasions. And,
upon examining these closely, one will find that, by these very changes,
force was spread generally throughout all the parts of Europe. One
knows the difficulty the Romans found in conquering Europe and the
ease with which they invaded Asia. One knows the pains the northern
peoples had to take to overthrow the Roman Empire, the wars and
works of Charlemagne, the various enterprises of the Normans. The
destroyers were constantly destroyed.

Part 3

chapter 5

That, when the peoples of northern Asia and those of
northern Europe conquered, the effects of their conquests
were not the same

The peoples of northern Europe have conquered as free men; the
peoples of northern Asia have conquered as slaves and have been
victorious only for a master.

The reason is that the Tartar people, Asia’s natural conquerors, have
become slaves themselves. They constantly conquer southern Asia,
they form empires; but the part of the conquering nation that remains
in this country is subject to a great master, who is despotic in the south,
who also wants to be so in the north and who, with arbitrary power over
the conquered subjects, claims it also over the conquering subjects.
This can be seen today in that vast country called Chinese Tartary,
which the emperor governs almost as despotically as China itself and
which he extends every day by his conquests.

One can also see in the history of China that the emperors 5 sent
colonies of Chinese into Tartary. These Chinese became Tartars and
mortal enemies of China, but that did not keep them from carrying the
spirit of Chinese government into Tartary.

Often a part of the Tartar nation that conquered was itself driven
out, and it went back to its deserts with a spirit of servitude acquired in
the climate of slavery. The history of China furnishes us with great
examples, as does our ancient history . 6

This is why the genius of the Tartar or Getae nation has always been
similar to that of the empires of Asia. The peoples in the latter are
governed by the cudgel; the Tartar peoples, by the lash. The spirit of
Europe has always been contrary to these mores; and what the peoples
of Asia have always called punishment, the peoples of Europe have
always called gross offence . 7

5 As did Ven-ti [actually Vou-ti], fifth emperor of the fifth dynasty. [Father Jean Baptiste du
Halde, Description del'Empire de la Chine, “Fastes de la monarchic chinoise”; i, 354 H; 1 ,
384 P; 1,352 L).

6 The Scythians conquered Asia three times and were driven out three times. Justin, bk. 2
[Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum 2.3].

7 This is not at all contrary to what I shall say in bk. 28, chap. 20, on the manner of thinking
of the German peoples concerning the staff. Whatever instrument it was, they always
regarded as an affront the arbitrary power to beat and the action of beating.

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When the Tartars destroyed the Greek empire, they established
servitude and despotism in the conquered countries; when the Goths
conquered the Roman empire, they founded monarchy and liberty
everywhere.

I do not know if the famous Rudbeck, who in his Atlantica? has so
praised Scandinavia, has mentioned the great prerogative that should
put the nations inhabiting it above all the peoples of the world: it is that
they have been the source of European liberty, that is, of almost all of it
that there is today among men.

The Goth Jordanes has called northern Europe the manufactory of
the human species . 8 I shall rather call it the manufactory of the
instruments that break the chains forged in the south. It is there that are
formed the valiant nations who go out of their own countries to destroy
tyrants and slaves and to teach men that, as nature has made them
equal, reason can make them dependent only for the sake of their
happiness.

8 [Jordanes, Getica, chap. 4]: “the workshop for the human race” [L.].

a Olof Rudbeck, A tlantica.

CHAPTER 6

An additional physical cause for the servitude of Asia
and the liberty of Europe

In Asia one has always seen great empires; in Europe they were never
able to continue to exist. This is because the Asia we know has broader
plains; it is cut into larger parts by seas; and, as it is more to the south, its
streams dry up more easily, its mountains are less covered with snow,
and its smaller rivers 9 form slighter barriers.

Therefore, power should always be despotic in Asia. For if servitude
there were not extreme, there would immediately be a division that the
nature of the country cannot endure.

In Europe, the natural divisions form many medium-sized states in
which the government of laws is not incompatible with the maintenance
of the state; on the other hand, they are so favorable to this that without

’Waters are lost or evaporate before they converge or after they converge.

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laws this state falls into decadence and becomes inferior to all the
others.

This is what has formed a genius for liberty, which makes it very
difficult to subjugate each part and to put it under a foreign force other
than by laws and by what is useful to its commerce.

By contrast in Asia there reigns a spirit of servitude that has never left
it, and in all the histories of this country it is not possible to find a single
trait marking a free soul; one will never see there anything but the
heroism of servitude.

CHAPTER 7

On Africa and on America

This is what I can say about Asia and Europe. Africa has a climate like
that of southern Asia, and it has the same servitude. America , 10
destroyed and newly repopulated by the nations of Europe and Africa,
can scarcely demonstrate its own genius today, but what we know of its
former history is quite in conformity with our principles.

10 The little barbarian peoples of America are called Ittdios bravos by the Spanish; they are
much more difficult to subject than die great empires of Mexico and Peru.

CHAPTER8

On the capital of the empire

One of the consequences of what we have just said is that it is important
to a very great prince to choose well the seat of his empire. He who puts
it in the south will run the risk of losing the north, and he who puts it in
the north will easily preserve the south. I do not speak of particular
cases: as mechanics has its frictions which often change or check its
theoretical effects, politics, too, has its frictions.

284

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BOOK 18

On the laws in their relation with the
nature of the terrain"

CHAPTER I

How the nature of the terrain influences the laws

The goodness of a country’s lands establishes dependence there
naturally. The people in the countryside, who are the great part of the
people, are not very careful of their liberty; they are too busy and too full
of their individual matters of business. A countryside bursting with
goods fears pillage, it fears an army. “Who is it that forms the good
party?” Cicero asked Atticus . 1 “Is it the people in commerce and in the
countryside? Not unless we imagine that the people for whom all
governments are equal provided they are tranquil oppose monarchy.”

Thus, government by one alone appears more frequently in fertile
countries and government by many in the countries that are not, which
is sometimes a compensation for them.

The barrenness of the Attic terrain established popular government
there, and the fertility of the Lacedaemonian terrain, aristocratic
government. For, in those days in Greece, one did not want govern-
ment by one alone; now, aristocratic government is more closely related
to the government by one alone.

Plutarch tells us 2 that “when the sedition of Cylon had been pacified
in Athens, the town fell back into its former dissensions and was
divided into as many parties as there were sorts of territories in the
country of Attica. The people in the mountains wanted popular
government at any cost; those of the plains demanded government by

1 [Cicero, Epistolae ad Auicum] bk. 7 [7.7].

2 [Plutarch, Vil.] Solon [13.1].

““Terrain,” lerrtin, includes the quality of the soil as well as the configuration of the
land - flat, hilly, etc.

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the principal men; those near the sea were for a government mixing the
two.”

CHAPTER 2

Continuation of the same subject

The fertile countries have plains where one can dispute nothing with
the stronger man: therefore, one submits to him; and, when one has
submitted to him, the spirit of liberty cannot return; the goods of the
countryside are a guarantee of faithfulness. But in mountainous
countries, one can preserve what one has, and one has little to preserve.
Liberty, that is, the government they enjoy, is the only good worth
defending. Therefore, it reigns more frequently in mountainous and
difficult countries than in those which nature seems to have favored
more.

The mountain people preserve a more moderate government
because they are not as greatly exposed to conquest. They defend
themselves easily, they are attacked with difficulty; ammunition and
provisions are brought together and transported against them at great
expense, as the country provides neither. Therefore, it is more difficult
to wage war against them, more dangerous to undertake it, and there is
less occasion for all the laws one makes for the people’s security.

CHAPTER 3

Which countries are the most cultivated

Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but in
proportion to their liberty, and if one divides the earth in thought, one
will be astonished to see that most of the time the most fertile parts are
deserted and that great peoples are in those where the terrain seems to
refuse everything.

It is natural for a people to leave a bad country in search of a better
and not for them to leave a good country in search of a worse.
Therefore, most invasions occur in countries nature had made to be

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

happy, and as nothing is nearer to devastation than invasion, the best
countries most often lose their population, whereas the wretched
countries of the north continue to be inhabited because they are almost
uninhabitable.

Historians’ accounts of the crossing of the Danube by the
Scandinavian peoples show that it was not a conquest but only a
migration into deserted lands.

Therefore these happy climates had been depopulated by other
migrations, and we do not know what tragic things occurred.

“Many records show,” says Aristotle , 3 “that Sardinia is a Greek
colony. It was formerly rich, and Aristaeus, whose love for agriculture
has been so vaunted, gave it laws. But, it has fallen into ruin since then
for, when the Carthaginians made themselves masters of it, they
destroyed everything that could make it fit to nourish men and
prohibited cultivating the land on penalty of death.” Sardinia had not
recovered in Aristotle’s time, nor has it to this day.

The most temperate parts of Persia, Turkey, Muscovy, and Poland
have not been able to recover after the devastations of the greater and
lesser Tartars.

3 Or the one who wrote the book [Aristotle, De mirabilibus auscultalionibus 838612-29,
#100].

CHAPTER 4

Other effects of the fertility and barrenness of a country

The barrenness of the land makes men industrious, sober, inured to
work, courageous, and fit for war; they must procure for themselves
what the terrain refuses them. The fertility of a country gives, along
with ease, softness and a certain love for the preservation of life.

It has been observed that the troops of Germany levied in places
where the peasants are rich, as in Saxony, are not as good as the others.
Military laws can provide for this drawback by a more severe discipline.

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CHAPTER 5

On island peoples

Island peoples are more inclined to liberty than continental peoples.
Islands are usually small ; 4 one part of the people cannot as easily be
employed to oppress the other; the sea separates them from great
empires, and tyranny cannot reach them; conquerors are checked by
the sea; islanders are not overrun by conquest, and they preserve their
laws more easily.

4 Japan is an exception to this because of its size and its servitude.

CHAPTER6

On countries formed by the industriousness of men

Countries which have been made inhabitable by the industry of men
and which need that same industry in order to exist call for moderate
government. There are three principal ones: the two fine provinces of
Kiangsu and Chekiang in China, Egypt, and Holland.

The former emperors of China were not conquerors. The first thing
that they did to enlarge their country was the one that most demon-
strated their wisdom. The finest provinces in the empire were seen to
rise from under the water; they were made by men. The indescribable
fertility of these two provinces has given Europe its ideas of the felicity
of that vast region. But the continuous care necessary to protect such an
important part of the empire from destruction required the mores of a
wise people rather than those of a voluptuous people, the legitimate
power of a monarch rather than the tyrannical power of a despot. Power
had to be moderate there, as it was in times past in Egypt. Power had to
be moderate there as it is in Holland, which nature made so that
attention would be paid to her and that she would not be abandoned to
indifference or caprice.

Thus, in spite of the climate of China, where one is by nature
inclined to servile obedience, in spite of the horrors that attend an
excessively large empire, the first legislators of China were obliged to
make very good laws, and the government was often obliged to observe
them.

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The lams and the nature of the terrain

chapter 7
On the works of men

Men, by their care and their good laws, have made the earth more fit to
be their home. We see rivers flowing where there were lakes and
marshes; it is a good that nature did not make, but which is maintained
by nature. When the Persians 5 were the masters of Asia, they permitted
those who diverted the water from its source to a place that had not yet
been watered to enjoy it for five generations, and, as many streams flow
from the Taurus mountains, they spared no expense in getting water
from there. Today, one finds it in one’s fields and gardens without
knowing where it comes from.

Thus, just as destructive nations do evil things that last longer than
themselves, there are industrious nations that do good things that do
not end with themselves.

5 Polybius [Historiae], bk. io [10.28.3-4].

CHAPTER 8

General relation of the laws

The laws are very closely related to the way that various peoples
procure their subsistence. There must be a more extensive code of laws
for a people attached to commerce and the sea than for a people
satisfied to cultivate their lands. There must be a greater one for the
latter than for a people who live by their herds. There must be a greater
one for these last than for a people who live by hunting.

CHAPTER 9

On the American terrain

There are so many savage nations in America because the land by itself
produces much fruit with which to nourish them. If the women
cultivate a bit of the earth around their huts, com grows immediately.

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Hunting and fishing complete their abundance. Moreover, grazing
animals, like cattle, buffalo, etc., succeed better there than carnivorous
beasts. The latter have had dominion in Africa from time immemorial.

I believe one would not have all these advantages in Europe if the
earth were left uncultivated; there would be scarcely anything but
forests of oak and of other unproductive trees.

CHAPTER 10

On the number of men in relation to their
way of procuring subsistence

The number of men in nations that do not cultivate the land is found in
the following proportions. As production on an uncultivated terrain is
to production on a cultivated terrain, so the number of savages in one
country is to the number of plowmen in another, and as for the people
who cultivate the land and also cultivate the arts, this follows propor-
tions that would require many details.

They can scarcely form a large nation. If they are herdsmen, they
need a large country so that any number of them can continue to exist; if
they are hunters, they are still fewer in number and they form, in order
to obtain a livelihood, a smaller nation.

Their country is ordinarily full of forests, and as men have not dug
canals for water, it is filled with marshes where each band camps and
forms a small nation.

CHAPTER II

On savage peoples and barbarian peoples

One difference between savage peoples and barbarian peoples is that
the former are small scattered nations which, for certain particular
reasons, cannot unite, whereas barbarians are ordinarily small nations
that can unite together. The former are usually hunting peoples; the
latter, pastoral peoples. This is clearly seen in northern Asia. The
peoples of Siberia could not live together in a body because they could
not feed themselves; the Tartars can live together in a body for some

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time because their herds can be brought together for that time. All the
hordes can, therefore, unite, and this occurs when one leader has
subjected many others; after which they must either separate or they
must set out to make some great conquest of an empire to the south.

CHAPTER 12

On the right of nations among peoples who
do not cultivate the land

As these peoples do not live on a limited and circumscribed terrain,
they will have many things to quarrel about; they will dispute over
uncultivated land, as our citizens dispute over inheritances. Thus, they
will find frequent occasions for war in their hunting, and their fishing,
and in providing food for their livestock, and carrying away slaves; and,
lacking a territory, they will have so many things to regulate by the right
of nations that they will have few to decide by civil right.

CHAPTER 13

On civil laws among peoples who do not cultivate the land

It is the division of lands that principally swells the civil code. In nations
that have not been divided there will be very few civil laws.

One can call the institutions of these peoples mores rather than laws.

In such nations the old men, who remember things past, have great
authority; one cannot be distinguished by one’s goods there, but by
arms and by counsel.

These peoples wander and scatter over the pastures or in the forests.
Marriage will not be as secure as among ourselves, where it is fixed by
the home and where the wife is attached to a house; they can more
easily, therefore, change wives, have several of them, and sometimes
mingle indifferently like beasts.

Pastoral peoples cannot be separated from their herds, which
provide their subsistence, nor can they be separated from their wives,
who take care of them. All this should, therefore, go together; the more
so because, as they ordinarily live in great plains where few strongholds

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are built, their wives, children, and herds would become the prey of
their enemies.

Their laws will regulate the division of the spoils and will, like our
Salic laws, pay particular attention to theft.

CHAPTER 14

On the political state of peoples who do not
cultivate the land

These peoples enjoy a great liberty: for, as they do not cultivate the
land, they are not attached to it; they are wanderers, vagabonds; and if a
leader wanted to take their liberty from them, they would immediately
go and seek it with another leader or withdraw into the woods to live
there with their family. Among these peoples, the liberty of the man is
so great that it necessarily brings with it the liberty of the citizen.

CHAPTER 15

On peoples who know the use of money

When Aristippus was shipwrecked, he swam until he reached a nearby
shore; he saw geometric figures traced in the sand; he rejoiced, judging
that he had arrived among a Greek people and not among a barbarian
people.

If you are alone and happen to come by accident to the land of an
unknown people and if you see a coin, reckon that you have arrived in a
nation with a police.

The cultivation of the land requires the use of money. Cultivation
assumes many arts and much knowledge, and one always sees arts,
knowledge, and needs keeping pace together. All this leads to the
establishment of a sign for value.

Storms and fires led us to discover that the earth contained metals . 6
When they were once separated from the earth, it was easy to use them.

6 Diodorus [Siculus] [Bibliotheca kistorica 5.35.3] tells us that shepherds found die gold
[silver, according to Diodorus] of the Pyrenees in this way.

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

chapter 16

On civil laws among peoples who do not
know the use of money

When a people do not use money, one finds among them scarcely any
other injustices but those stemming from violence; and weak people, by
uniting, defend themselves from violence. Among them, therefore,
there are scarcely any arrangements that are not political. But among a
people who have established the use of money, one is subject to the
injustices that come from trickery, and these injustices can be exercised
in a thousand ways. Therefore, one is forced to have good civil laws
there; these arise along with the new means and the various ways of
being wicked.

In countries where there is no money, the plunderer carries away
only things, and things are never alike. In countries where there is
money, the plunderer carries away signs, and signs are always alike. In
the former countries nothing can be hidden, because the plunderer
always carries with him proofs for his conviction; it is not the same in
the latter countries.

CHAPTER 17

On political laws among people who do not use money

What most secures the liberty of peoples who do not cultivate the land
is that money is unknown to them. The fruits of hunting, fishing, or
herding cannot be brought together in great enough quantity or be
protected well enough for one man to be in a position to corrupt all the
others; whereas, when one has signs for wealth, these signs can be
amassed and distributed to whomever one wants.

Among peoples without money, each man has few needs and
satisfies them easily and equally. Equality, therefore, is forced; thus,
their leaders are not despotic.

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CHAPTER l8

The force of superstition

If what the accounts tell us is true, the constitution of a people of
Louisiana called the Natchez is an exception. Their leader 7 controls
the disposition of the goods of all his subjects and makes them work
according to his fancy; they cannot refuse him their heads; he is like the
Grand Signior/ When an heir presumptive is bom, he is given all the
suckling children to serve him during his life. You would say he is the
great Sesostris. This leader is treated in his hut with the ceremonies
one would give to an emperor in Japan or China.

The prejudices of superstition are greater than all other prejudices,
and its reasons greater than all other reasons. Thus, although savage
peoples do not know despotism naturally, these people know it. They
worship the sun, and if their leader had not imagined that he was the
brother of the sun, they would have found in him only a poor wretch
like themselves.

7 Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, 20 [Lettre du P. Le Petit, la Nouvelle-Orleans,July 12, 1730;
vol. 20, 106-113; I 73 I cdn].

'The Turkish emperor.

CHAPTER 19

On the liberty of the Arabs and the servitude of the Tartars

The Arabs and Tartars are pastoral peoples. The Arabs belong to the
general case we have mentioned and are free; whereas the Tartars (the
most singular people on earth) are in political slavery. 8 1 have already 9
given some reasons for this last fact: here are some others.

They have no towns, they have no forests, they have few marshes;
their rivers are almost always frozen; they live in an immense plain; they
have pastures and herds and consequently goods; but they have no
place of retreat or defense. As soon as a khan is vanquished, his head is

8 When a khan is proclaimed, all the people shout, “May his word serve him as a sword!”
9 Bk. 17, chap. 5 [above].

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

cut off , 10 so are his children’s, and all his subjects belong to the
vanquisher. They are not condemned to a civil slavery; they would be
burdensome to a simple nation which has no land to cultivate and no
need of domestic service. Therefore, they increase the nation. But one
conceives that political slavery instead of civil slavery has had to appear.

Indeed, in a country where the various hordes are continually at war
and constantly conquer one another, where the political body of each
vanquished horde is always destroyed by the death of the leader, the
nation in general can scarcely be free, for there is not a single part of it
that must not have been subjugated a great many times.

Vanquished peoples can preserve some liberty, when, by the
strength of their situation, they are in a position to make treaties after
their defeat. But the Tartars, always defenseless, once vanquished have
never been able to make conditions.

I have said in Chapter 2 that the inhabitants of cultivated plains were
scarcely free; circumstances put the Tartars, who live in a wasteland, in
the same situation.

*°Thus one must not be astonished if Mir Vais [actually Mir Vais’ son Mir Mahaud], after
making himself master of Ispahan, had all the princes of the blood killed.

CHAPTER 20

On the right of nations among the Tartars

The Tartars appear gentle and humane to each other, and they are very
cruel conquerors; they put to the sword the inhabitants of the towns
they take; they believe themselves merciful when they sell or distribute
the inhabitants to their soldiers. They have destroyed Asia from the
Indies to the Mediterranean; the whole country that forms eastern
Persia has become deserted on account of them.

Here is what seems to me to have produced such a right of nations.
These peoples had no towns at all; all their wars were waged quickly
and impetuously. When they expected to vanquish, they fought; they
joined the stronger army when they did not expect to win. With such
customs, they found that it was contrary to their right of nations for a
town that could not resist them to check them: they did not consider a
town as an assembly of inhabitants, but as a place apt to escape their

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power. They had no art for besieging towns, and they exposed
themselves greatly when they did so; they took blood revenge for all the
blood they had spilled.

CHAPTER 21

Civil law of the Tartars

Father du Halde says that, among the Tartars, it is always the last male
child who inherits, because as the older ones gradually reach a position
to lead the pastoral life, they leave their house with a certain quantity of
livestock given them by their father and go to build a new dwelling.
Therefore, the last of the males remaining in the house with his father
is his natural heir.

I have heard it said that a similar custom was observed in some small
districts in England, and it is still found in Brittany in the Duchy of
Rohan, where it applies to commoners. No doubt it is a pastoral law that
came from some lesser Breton people or was brought by some
Germanic people. It is known from Caesar and Tacitus that these latter
cultivated the land but little.

CHAPTER 22

On a civil law of the Germanic peoples

I shall explain here how a particular text from Salic Law, the text
usually called the Salic Law, concerns the institutions of a people who
did not cultivate the land, or at least cultivated it but little.

When a man leaves children, the Salic Law 11 wants the males to
inherit the Salic land in preference to the daughters.

In order to know what these Salic lands were, one must discover
what property was and what the use of the land was among the Franks
before they left Germany.

M. Eckhart has nicely proven that the word Salic comes from the
word sala y which means house, and thus that the Salic land was the land

n [Lex Salim] tit. 62 {D93; S34].

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

around the house / 1 shall go further and examine what were the house
and the land around the house among the Germans.

“They do not live in towns,” says Tacitus, 12 “and they cannot
tolerate their houses touching one another; each leaves around his
house a small parcel of ground or a space which is enclosed and shut
in.” Tacitus spoke correctly. For, many laws in the barbarian codes 13
have different provisions for those who knocked down this enclosure,
and for those who entered the house itself.

We know from Tacitus and Caesar that the lands the Germans
cultivated were given to them for only a year, and then became public
again. The Germans had no patrimony other than the house and a bit
of land within the enclosure around the house. 14 This particular
patrimony belonged to the males. Indeed, why would it have belonged
to the daughters? They entered other houses.

Therefore, the Salic land was that enclosure appended to the
German’s house; it was the only property he had. After the conquest
the Franks acquired new properties, which continued to be called Salic
lands.

When the Franks lived in Germany, their goods were slaves, herds,
horses, arms, etc. The house and the small portion of land adjoining it
were naturally given to the male children who were to live there. But,
when the Franks had acquired extensive lands after the conquest, it was
found harsh that the daughters and their children could not have a
share. A usage was introduced which permitted the father to recall his
daughter and his daughter’s children. The law was silenced, and these
sorts of recalls must have been common because formulas were made
for them. 15

Among all these formulas, I find a singular one. 16 A grandfather

12 [Tacitus] Germania [16]: “It is well known that the peoples of Germany have no cities, nor
do they even permit their houses to be joined one to another. They live separate and
scattered where a fountain, a field, or a glade has attracted them. They do not establish
their villages in our fashion with the buildings being connected and joined together;
instead, each home is surrounded by an open space” [L.].

13 Leges Alamannorum, chap, io [aq; bio] and Lex Baiwariorum, tit. io, paras. 1-2 [1 1.1-2].

14 This enclosure is called curtis in the charters.

15 See Marculf [Marculfi formulae], bk. 2, form. 10 and 12 [2.10, 12 ]; Appendice de Marculfe,
form. 49 [Cartae Senonicae, 45]; and the old formulas, known as “Sirmondi’s,” form. 22
[Formulae Turonenses vulgo Sirmondicae dictae 22].

16 Formulae Salicae Lindenbrogianae, form. 55 [12].

“Johann Georg von Eckhart, Leges Francorum Salicae el Ripuariae , pp. 20, 42, 44, 56;

1720 edn.

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recalls his grandchildren to inherit with his sons and daughters. What
had the Salic Law become? It must have been no longer observed, even
at that time, or the continual usage of recalling daughters must have
qualified them to inherit in the most ordinary case.

As the Salic Law did not have as its purpose a preference for one sex
over another, it had still less that of perpetuating a family, a name, or a
transfer of land; none of this entered the heads of the Germans. It was a
purely economic law which gave the house and the land around it to the
males who were to live in it and for whom consequently it was best
suited.

One need only transcribe here the article, On Alloidal Lands in the
Salic Law, that famous text so talked about and so little read:

i. “If a man dies without children, his father or his mother will
inherit from him. 2. If he has neither father nor mother, his brother or
sister will inherit from him. 3. If he has neither brother nor sister, his
mother’s sister will inherit from him. 4. If his mother has no sister, his
father’s sister will inherit from him. 5. If his father has no sister, the
nearest relative on the male side will inherit. 6. No portion 17 of the Salic
land will pass to the females, but it will belong to the males, that is, the
male children will inherit from their father.”

It is clear that the first five articles concern the inheritance of one
who dies without children; and the sixth, the inheritance of one who
has children.

When a man died without children, the law wanted one sex to be
preferred over the other only in certain cases. In the first two degrees of
inheritance, the advantages of males and females were the same; in the
third and fourth, women were preferred; males were preferred in the
fifth.

I find the seeds of these eccentricities in Tacitus. “The children of
sisters,” 18 he says, “are cherished by their uncle as by their own father.
There are some people who consider this bond as closer and even
holier; they prefer it when they take hostages.” This is why our first

17 “No portion of the Salic lands will pass as inheritance to women, but it will be acquired by
the male sex, that is, the sons shall succeed to the inheritance” [L.]. \Pactus legis Salicae],
tit. 62, para. 6 [59.6].

’*“The sons of sisters are held in the same honor by uncles as by the father. Indeed, some
judge this blood tie as more sacred and binding, and demand them more often when taking
hostages, thinking to have a firmer and more extensive hold upon their spirits and
household” [L.]. [Tacitus] Germania [20].

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

historians 19 tell us so much about the love of the Frankish kings for
their sister and their sister’s children. For if the children of sisters were
regarded in the brother’s house as his own, it was natural for the
children to regard their aunt as their own mother.

The mother’s sister was preferred to the father’s sister; this is
explained by other texts of the Salic law; when a woman was a widow , 20
she came under the guardianship of her husband’s relatives; the law
preferred the female relatives to the male relatives for this guardian-
ship. Indeed, a woman who entered a family and joined those persons
of her sex was closer to the female relatives than to the male relatives.
Moreover, when one man had killed another man 21 and could not
satisfy the pecuniary penalty he incurred, the law permitted him to cede
his goods, and his relatives had to make up what was lacking. After his
father, mother, and brother, it was the mother’s sister who paid, as if
this bond had something more tender about it; now, the kinship that
gives burdens had likewise to give advantages.

The Salic Law wanted the closest male relative after the father’s
sister to have the inheritance, but if he were a relative beyond the fifth
degree, he would not inherit it. Thus, a woman of the fifth degree
would have inherited in preference to a man of the sixth; and this is
seen in the law of the Ripuarian Franks , 22 a faithful interpreter of the
Salic Law in the article concerning allodial lands, where it follows step
by step the same article of that law.

If the father left children, the Salic Law wanted the daughters to be
excluded from the inheritance of the Salic land and wanted this to
belong to the male children.

It would be easy for me to prove that the Salic law did not exclude
daughters from the Salic land without distinction, but rather only in the
case where brothers would exclude them. This is seen in the Salic law
itself, which, after saying that the women would possess nothing of the
Salic land and that only men would, interprets and restrains itself; “that
is,” it says, “the son will inherit the father’s legacy.”

19 See in Gregory of T ours [Historia ecclesiastical bk. 8, chaps. 1 8 and 20, and bk. 9, chaps, 1 6
and 20 [8. 18.28; 9. 16.20], Guntram’s fury at the ill treatment done Ingunda, his niece, by
Lenvigilda, and how Childebert, his brother, made war to avenge her.

20 Lex Salica, tit. 47 [D79; S24].

Z] LexSalica, tit. 61, para. 1 [dioo; si 7].

22 “And then in succession up to the fifth degree, whoever is closer will succeed to the
inheritance” [L.]. [Lex Ribuaria] tit. 56, para. 6 [57.3].

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2. The text of the Salic law is clarified by the law of the Ripuarian
Franks, which has also an article 23 on alloidal lands quite in conformity
with the Salic Law.

3. The laws of these barbarian peoples, who all come from Germany,
interpret each other; the more so because they all have nearly the same
spirit. The law of the Saxons 24 wants the father and mother to leave
their inheritance to their son and not to their daughter, but if there are
only daughters, it wants them to have the entire inheritance.

4. We have two old formulas, 25 which propose the case in which, in
accord with the Salic Law, daughters are excluded by the males: this is
when they compete with their brother.

5. Another formula 26 proves that the daughter inherited in prefer-
ence to the grandson; therefore, she was excluded only by the son.

6. If the daughters had been generally excluded from the inheritance
of lands by the Salic Law, it would be impossible to explain the
histories, formulas, and charters, which continually speak of the lands
and goods of women under the Merovingians/

It has been mistakenly said 27 that the Salic lands were fiefs. 1. This
article is entitled, On Alloidal Lands. 2. In the beginning fiefs were not
hereditary. 3. If the Salic lands had been fiefs, how could Marculf have
treated as impious the custom which excluded women from inheriting
them, for even males did not inherit fiefs? 4. The charters that are cited
to prove that the Salic lands were fiefs prove only that they were free
lands/ 5. Fiefs were established only after the conquest, and Salic
usages existed before the Franks left Germany. 6. It was not the Salic
Law that, by limiting the inheritance of women, formed the establish-
ment of fiefs, but rather the ptftablishment of fiefs that put limits on
both the inheritance of women and the provisions of the Salic Law.

23 [Lex Ribtiaria) tit. 56 [57].

24 [Leges Saxtmum] tit. 7, para. 1 [4 1 J. “The father and mother being dead, they shall leave the
inheritance to the son, not the daughter” (L.J; para. 4 [44] “They being dead having no
sons but leaving only a daughter, the entire inheritance belongs to her” [L.J.

25 In Marculf, bk. 2, form. 12 [Marculfi Formulae 2.12), and the Appendice de Marculfe, form.
49 [Cartae Senonicae 45].

26 In Formulae Salicae Lindenbrogianae, form. 55 [12].

27 Du Cange, Pithou, etc.

Montesquieu calls the ruling families of France the “First,” “Second,” and “Third
Race.” We refer to them as the Merovingians, Carolingians, and Capetians. See also
note / bk. 23.

1 terres ) ranches . Occasionally Montesquieu uses franc, meaning “free”; the instances
are marked in these notes.

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

After what we have just said, one would not believe that the personal
inheritance by males of the crown of France could come from the Salic
Law. It is, however, indubitable that it comes from there. I can prove
this by the various codes of the barbarian peoples. The Salic law 28 and
the law of the Burgundians 29 did not give daughters the right to inherit
land with their brothers, nor did they inherit the crown. The law of the
Visigoths , 30 on the other hand, permitted daughters 31 to inherit land
with their brothers; women were qualified to inherit the crown. Among
these peoples, the provisions of the civil law forced the political law . 32

This was not the only case among the Franks where the political law
gave way to the civil law. By the provision of the Salic Law, all brothers
inherited the land equally, and this was also the provision of the law of
the Burgundians. Thus, in the Frankish monarchy and in that of the
Burgundians, all the brothers inherited the crown, if we except a few
cases of violence, murder and usurpation among the Burgundians.

li [Lex Salka) tit. 62 [D93; S34].

29 [Leges Burgundionum) tit. 1, para. 3; tit. 14, para. 1; tit. 51 [1.3; 14.1; 51].

30 [i « c Wisigothorum] bk. 4, tit. 2, para. 1 [4.2.1].

3l The German nations, says Tacitus, had some usages in common; they also had some
particular ones. [Germania 27.]

32 Among the Ostrogoths, the crown passed twice from women to men: once through
Amalasuntha, in the person of Athalaric, and once through Amalafrede, in the person of
Theodohad. It is not that, among them, women could not reign for themselves:
Amalasuntha, after the death of Athalaric, reigned, and reigned even after the election of
Theodohad and concurrently with him. See the letters of Amalasuntha and those of
Theodohad, in Cassiodorus [Varioe], bk. 10.

CHAPTER 23

On the long hair of the Frankish kings

Peoples who do not cultivate the land do not have even the idea of
luxury. The admirable simplicity of the Germanic peoples must be
seen in Tacitus; art did not fashion their ornaments, they found them in
nature. If the family of their leader was to be marked by some sign, it
was again in nature that they had to seek it; the kings of the Franks,
Burgundians, and Visigoths wore their long hair as a diadem.

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CHAPTER 24

On the marriages of the Frankish kings

I have mentioned earlier that, among peoples who do not cultivate the
land, marriages were much less fixed and one ordinarily took several
wives. “The Germans were almost alone 53 among the barbarians to be
content with a single wife, if one excepts ,” 54 says Tacitus, “some
persons who, not because of their dissoluteness, but because of their
nobility, had many.”

This explains why the Merovingian kings had such a great number of
wives. These marriages were less an evidence of incontinence than an
attribute of rank; it would have wounded them in a tender spot to make
them lose such a prerogative . 35 This explains why the example of the
kings was not followed by their subjects.

33 “Almost alone among the barbarians they are content with one wife” [L.]. [Tacitus]
Germania [18].

34 “Except for a very few who are sought for numerous marriages, not on account of lust, but
rather for their nobility” [L.j. Ibid. [Tacitus, Germania, 18].

35 See Fredegarius’ Chronicon for anno 628 [chap. 58].

CHAPTER 25

Childeric

“Marriages among the Germans are severe ;” 36 says Tacitus, “vices are
not subject to ridicule there; to corrupt or to be corrupted is not called a
usage or a way of life; in so numerous a nation there are few examples 37
of the violation of conjugal faith.”

This explains the expulsion of Childeric; he offended the strict
mores that conquest had not had time to change.

36 “A severe code for marriage . . . No one laughs at vice; no one says it is the spirit of the
times to corrupt and be corrupted” [L.j. [Tacitus] Germania [18, 19].

37 “Among such a numerous people, adultery is very rare” [L.J. Ibid. [Tacitus, Germania,
* 9 ]-

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

chapter 26

On the coming of age of the Frankish kings

Barbarian peoples who do not cultivate the land have no territory
properly so-called and are, as we have said, governed by the right of
nations rather than by civil right. Therefore, they are almost always
armed. Thus Tacitus says that “the Germans engaged in no public or
particular matters of business without being armed . 38 They expressed
their view by a sign they made with their weapons . 39 As soon as they
could carry weapons they were presented to the assembly ; 40 a javelin
was put in their hands ; 41 from this time on they had left behind their
childhood ; 42 they had been a part of the family, they became part of the
republic.”

“Eagles,” said the king of the Ostrogoths , 43 “stop giving food to their
little ones as soon as their feathers and claws are formed; these little
ones no longer need the help of others when they themselves go in
search of prey. It would be shameful if our youth who are in our armies
were presumed to be too weak to control their own goods or regulate
the conduct of their lives. Among the Goths it is virtue that sets the
coming of age.”

Childebert II was fifteen years old 44 when Guntram, his uncle,
declared him of age and capable of governing by himself. One sees in
the law of the Ripuarian Franks that this age of fifteen years, the ability
to carry arms, and the time of one’s coming of age go together. “If a
Ripuarian has died or has been killed,” it is said there , 45 “and he has
left a son, the son cannot go in pursuit, or be pursued in judgment,

38 “They act upon no business, public or private, unless they are armed” [L.]. Tacitus,
Germania [13].

39 “If the opinions are displeasing, they are spurned; if pleasing, they shake their spears”
[L.]. Ibid. (Tacitus, Germania , 1 1].

^“It is not the custom for one to take up arms before the state has approved his
competence” [L.]. (Tacitus, Germania, 13].

41 “Then, in the council itself, either some prince or his father, or kinsman, equips the youth
with a shield and spear” [L.]. [Tacitus, Germania, 13.]

42 “These [arms] are what the toga is to us, the first honor of youth; before, he is part of the
household; afterward, part of the republic” [L.] [Tacitus, Germania, 13].

43 Theodoric, in Cassiodorus \ Variae], bk. 1, letter 38 [1.38].

44 He was scarcely more than five, says Gregory of Tours [Historia ecclesiasticafrancorum], bk.
5, chap. 1 [5.1], when he succeeded to his father in 575; that is, he was five. Guntram
declared him of age in 585; then he was fifteen.

45 \Lex Ribuaria] tit. 81 [84].

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unless he is fully fifteen years old; at that time he will answer for himself
or choose a champion.” The spirit had to be sufficiently formed for one
to be able to defend oneself in a judgment, and the body, for one to be
able to defend oneself in combat. Among the Burgundians , 46 who also
had the usage of combat in judicial actions, the coming of age was also
set at fifteen years.

Agathias tells us that the weapons of the Franks were light; there-
fore, they could come of age at fifteen. Later, weapons were heavier;
they were already so in the time of Charlemagne, as is apparent in our
capitularies and romances. Those who had fiefs , 47 and who conse-
quently had to do military service, came of age only when they were
twenty-one . 48

^ [Leges Burgundionum] tit. 87 [87.1].

47 There was no change for common men [roturiers].

48 St. Louis came of age only then. This was changed by an edict of Charles V, in 1374.
[Recueil general des anciennes lots franfaises, #546; 5, 415-424; 1824 edn.]

CHAPTER 27

Continuation of the same subject

It has been seen that among the Germans one did not go to the
assembly before reaching one’s majority; one was part of the family and
not part of the republic. This caused the children of Ciodomir, King of
Orleans and conqueror of Burgundy, not to be declared kings because
they could not be presented to the asembly at their tender age. They
were not yet kings, but they were to become kings when they were able
to carry weapons; and, meanwhile Clotilda, their grandmother, gov-
erned the state . 49 Their uncles Clotaire and Childebert slaughtered
them and divided their kingdom. Because of this example later princes
who were wards were declared king immediately after the death of their
fathers. Thus, Duke Gondovald saved Childebert II from the cruelty of
Chilperic and had him declared king 50 at the age of five.

49 It appears in Gregory of T ours, Historia ecclesiastica Francorum, bk. 3 [3 . 1 7], that she chose
two men from Burgundy, which had been conquered by Ciodomir, to be put on the throne
at Tours, which was also in Clodomir’s kingdom.

50 Gregory of Tours [Historia ecclesiastica Francorum ], bk. 5, chap. 1 [5.1): “Although scarcely
five years old, he began to rule on Christmas Day” [L.].

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The lam and the nature of the terrain

But, even with this change, one followed the first spirit of the nation,
and acts were not passed in the name of kings who were wards. Thus,
among the Franks there was a double administration, the one concern-
ing the person of the king who was a ward and the other concerning the
kingdom; and in the fiefs there was a difference between guardianship
and bailiffry.

CHAPTER 28

On adoption among the Germans

As, among the Germans, one came of age on receiving weapons, one
was adopted by the same sign. Thus, Guntram, wanting to declare his
nephew Childebert of age and also to adopt him, told him, “I put 51 this
javelin in your hands as a sign that I have given you my kingdom.” And,
turning to the assembly, “You see that my son Childebert has become a
man; obey him.” When Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, wanted to
adopt the king of the Heruli, he wrote to him : 52

it is a fine thing we have, that we can adopt by weapons, for
courageous men are the only ones who are worthy of becoming our
children. There is such a force in this act that the one who is the
object of it will always prefer to die than to suffer something
shameful. Thus, by the custom of nations, and because you are a
man, we adopt you by these shields, these swords, and these horses
that we are sending you.

51 See Gregory of Tours [. Historia ecclesiastica Francorum ], bk. 7, chap. 23 [7.33].

52 In Cassiodorus [Variae] bk. 4, letter 2 [4.2].

CHAPTER 2 g

The bloodthirsty spirit of the Frankish kings

Clovis was not the only prince among the Franks who undertook
expeditions into Gaul; many of his relatives had led certain tribes there,
and as he had greater success and could give important establishments
to those who had followed him, the Franks flocked to him from all the

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tribes and the other leaders found themselves too weak to resist him.
He formed the design of exterminating all those of his house and
succeeded at it . 53 He feared, said Gregory of Tours , 54 that the Franks
might take another leader. His children and his successors followed
this practice as much as they could: the brother, the uncle, the nephew
(what can I say?)/ the son, the father, were seen constantly conspiring
against the rest of the family. The law constantly divided the monarchy;
fear, ambition, and cruelty wanted to reunite it.

53 Gregory of Tours [ Historia ecclesiastica Franco rum], bfc. 2 [2.42 J.

54 Ibid. [Gregory of Tours, Historia ecclesiastica Francorum 2.42].

^Translators’ parentheses.

CHAPTER 30

On the national assemblies among the Franks

It has been mentioned earlier that peoples who do not cultivate the land
enjoyed a great liberty. This was the case for the Germans. Tacitus says
that they gave their kings or leaders only a very moderate power , 55 and
Caesar says 56 that they had no common magistrate during peacetime
but that in each village the princes rendered justice among their own.
Thus, in Germany the Franks had no king, as Gregory of Tours 57
proves nicely.

“Princes ,” 58 says Tacitus, “deliberate on small things, the entire
nation on large things, in such a way, however, that the matters that are
within the cognizance of the people are also carried to the princes.”
This usage was preserved after the conquest, as is seen in all the
records . 59

ss “The kings have neither unlimited nor unbounded power [. . .J. Moreover, neither to
punish, to put in bonds, nor to flog, etc.” [L.J. [Tacitus] Germania [chap. 7].

56 “During peacetime there is no common magistrate; instead, the princes of the region and
cantons give justice among their own people” [L.]. [Gaius Julius Caesar] De hello Gallico,
bk. 6 [6.23].

57 [Gregory of Tours, Historia ecclesiastica Francorum] bk. 2 [2.9].

58 “On lesser issues, only the princes consult, on greater ones, everyone; but even when it is a
decision within the power of the people, first it is thoroughly considered by the princes”
[L.] [Tacitus] Germania [chap. 11].

59 “Law is made by the consensus of the people and the constitution of the king” [L.].
Capitularies of Charles the Bald, anno 864, art. 6 [CRF, 273.6].

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The laws and the nature of the terrain

Tacitus 60 says that capital crimes could be brought before the
assembly. It was the same after the conquest, and the great vassals were
judged there as well.

60 “In their council it is permitted to consider the accusation of a capital crime” [L.]
[Tacitus] Germania [12].

CHAPTER 31

On the authority of the clergy under the Merovingians

Among barbarian peoples, priests ordinarily have power because they
have both the authority, which religion should give them, and the
power which superstition gives among such peoples. Thus, we see in
Tacitus that the priests were highly esteemed among the Germans and
that their presence introduced a police 61 into the assembly of the
people. They were permitted only 62 to chastise, to bind, and to strike,
which they did, not by order of the prince, or to inflict a penalty, but as
by divine inspiration, ever present in those who wage war.

One must not be surprised if, from the beginning of the reign of the
Merovingians, bishops are seen to be arbiters 63 of judgments, if they
are seen appearing in the national assemblies, if they greatly influence
the resolution of the kings, and if they are given so many goods.

61 “Silence is commanded by the priests who have the right to keep order” [L.]. [Tacitus]
Germania [11].

62 “The kings have neither unlimited nor unbounded power [. . .]. Moreover, it is only
permitted to priests to punish, to put in bonds, or to flog; and this is done, not as if it were a
penalty, or as an order from the leader, but by the command of God, as it were, whom they
believe to be present in the warrior” [L.]. Ibid. [Tacitus, Germania, 7.]

63 See Chlotharii regis constitutio generalis, anno 560, art. 6 [CRF, 8.6].

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BOOK 19

On the laws in their relation with the
principles forming the general spirit, the
mores, and the manners of a nation

CHAPTER I

On the subject of this book

This material is very extensive. In this crowd of ideas that present
themselves in my spirit, I shall be more attentive to the order of things
than to the things themselves. I must push things away, break through,
and bring my subject to light.

CHAPTER 2

How much it is necessary for spirits to be prepared
for the best laws

Nothing appeared more intolerable to the Germans 1 than the tribunal
of Varus. The one that Justinian set up among the Laxians 2 in order to
try the murderer of their king seemed to them a horrible and barbarous
thing. Mithridates , 3 inveighing against the Romans, reproached them
above all for the formal procedures 4 of their justice. The Parthians
could not tolerate this king who, having been raised in Rome, made
himself affable 5 and accessible to everyone. Even liberty has appeared

1 They cut out lawyers’ tongues and said, “Viper, stop hissing.” Tacitus. [Not Tacitus but
Florus, Epitome rerum Romanorum 2.30.37; 4.12.37.]

2 Agathias [Historiarum], bk. 4 [4.1-10].

3 Justin [Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum], bk. 38 [38.4-7].

4 Calumnias litium : “false in litigation.” Ibid. [Justin, Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum
38 . 7 . 8 ].

s Tacitus \Annales 2.2], “The ease with which he could be approached, his affability, were
virtues unknown to the Parthians and instead they seemed to be new vices” [L.].

308

The spirit , mores, and manners of a nation

intolerable to peoples who were not accustomed to enjoying it. Thus is
pure air sometimes harmful to those who have lived in swampy
countries.

When in Pegu, a Venetian named Balbi was brought to the king . 6
When the latter learned that there was no king in Venice, he laughed so
much that he began to cough and could scarcely talk to his courtiers.
What legislator could propose popular government to such peoples?

6 He described it in 1 596. Recueil des voyages qui ont servi d l 'etablissement de la Compagnie des
[ndes, vol. 3,pt. i,p. 33. [‘‘Relation du second voiaged’EtiennevanderHage,”3,3o; 1705
edn; 3, 28; 1725 edn.]

CHAPTER 3

On tyranny

There are two sorts of tyranny: a real one, which consists in the violence
of the government, and one of opinion, which is felt when those who
govern establish things that run counter to a nation’s way of thinking.

Dio says that Augustus wanted to be called Romulus, but that, on
learning that the people feared that he wanted to make himself king, he
changed his design. The first Romans did not want a king because they
could not suffer his power; the Romans of the time of Augustus did not
want a king in order not to suffer his manners. For, although Caesar,
the triumvirs, and Augustus were real kings, they had preserved an
appearance of equality and in their private lives they seemed opposed to
the kingly pomp of that time; and, when the Romans did not want a
king, this meant that they wanted to keep their own manners and not
take on those of African and Eastern peoples.

Dio 7 tells us that the Roman people were very angry with Augustus
because of certain laws he had made which were too harsh, but that
their discontent ceased as soon as he brought back the actor Pylades,
who had been driven out of the town by the factions/ Such a people felt
tyranny more vividly when a buffoon was driven out than when all their
laws were taken from them.

' [Cass. Dio ,HistoriaRomana\ bk. 54, p. 532 [53.16.7, on Romulus; 54.17.4-5, on Pylades].

“These factions were based on the allegiances of the fans of the circus.

Part 3

CHAPTER 4

What the general spirit is

Many things govern men: climate, religion, laws, the maxims of the
government, examples of past things, mores, and manners; a general
spirit is formed as a result.

To the extent that, in each nation, one of these causes acts more
forcefully, the others yield to it. Nature and climate almost alone
dominate savages; manners govern the Chinese; laws tyrannize Japan;
in former times mores set the tone in Lacedaemonia; in Rome it was set
by the maxims of government and the ancient mores.

CHAPTER 5

Hojp careful one must be not to change the
general spirit of a nation

If there were in the world a nation which had a sociable humor, an
openness of heart; a joy in life, a taste, an ease in communicating its
thoughts; which was lively, pleasant, playful, sometimes imprudent,
often indiscreet; and which had with all that, courage, generosity,
frankness, and a certain point of honor, one should avoid disturbing its
manners by laws, in order not to disturb its virtues. If the character is
generally good, what difference do a few faults make?

One could constrain its women, make laws to correct their mores,
and limit their luxury, but who knows whether one would not lose a
certain taste that would be the source of the nation’s wealth and a
politeness that attracts foreigners to it?

The legislator is to follow the spirit of the nation when doing so is not
contrary to the principles of the government, for we do nothing better
than what we do freely and by following our natural genius.

If one gives a pedantic spirit to a nation naturally full of gaiety, the
state will gain nothing, either at home or abroad. Let it do frivolous
things seriously and serious things gaily.

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The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

chapter 6

That one must not correct everything

May we be left as we are, said a gentleman of a nation closely
resembling the one of which we have just given an idea. Nature repairs
everything. It has given us a vivacity capable of offending and one apt to
make us inconsiderate; this same vivacity is corrected by the politeness
it brings us, by inspiring us with a taste for the world and above all for
commerce with women.

May we be left as we are. Our discretions joined to our harmlessness
make unsuitable such laws as would curb our sociable humor.

CHAPTER 7

On the Athenians and Lacedaemonians

The Athenians, continued this gentleman, were a people who had
some relation with our own. They put gaiety in their public business; a
joke from the rostrum pleased them as much as one in the theater. The
vivacity they put into counsels was carried over into their execution.
The character of the Lacedaemonians was grave, serious, dry, taciturn.
One would have made no better use of an Athenian by boring him than
of a Lacedaemonian by amusing him.

CHAPTER 8

Some effects of the sociable humor

The more communicative peoples are, the more easily they change
their manners, because each man is more a spectacle for another; one
sees the singularities of individuals better. The climate that makes a
nation like to communicate also makes it like to change, and what
makes a nation like to change also makes its taste take form.

The society of women spoils mores and forms taste; the desire to
please more than others establishes ornamentation, and the desire to

Part 3

please more than oneself establishes fashions. Fashions are an import-
ant subject; as one allows one’s spirit to become frivolous, one
constantly increases the branches of commerce . 8

s See [Bernard Mandeville] The Fable of the Bees [i, 250-254; 1732 edn; remarkT, 1, 225-
228; 1924 edn}.

CHAPTER 9

On the vanity and the arrogance of nations

Vanity is as good a spring for a government as arrogance is a dangerous
one. To show this, one has only to imagine* to oneself, on the one hand,
the innumerable goods resulting from vanity: luxury, industry, the arts,
fashions, politeness, and taste, and, on the other hand, the infinite evils
born of the arrogance of certain nations: laziness, poverty, the
abandonment of everything, and the destruction of the nations that
chance has let fall into their hands as well as their own nation. Laziness 9
is the effect of arrogance; work follows from vanity: the arrogance of a
Spaniard will incline him not to work; the vanity of a Frenchman will
incline him to try to work better than the others.

Every lazy nation is grave; for those who do not work regard
themselves as sovereigns of those who work.

Examine all the nations and you will see that in most of them gravity,
arrogance, and laziness go hand in hand.

The people of Achim 10 are proud and lazy: those who have no slaves
rent one, if only to walk a hundred steps and carry two pints of rice; they
would believe themselves dishonored if they carried it themselves.

In many places on earth people let their fingernails grow in order to
indicate that they do not work.

9 The peoples who follow the Khan of Malacamber, those of Camataca and Coromandel,
are proud and lazy; they consume little because they are miserably poor; whereas the
Moguls and the peoples of Hindustan concern themselves with and enjoy the comforts of
life, like Europeans. Recueil des voyages qui ontservi a I’etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes ,
vol. 1, p. 54 [“Avis sur le Commerce des Indes Orientales”; i, liv; 1725 edn].
l0 See [William] Dampier [Voyages], vol. 3 [vol. 2, pt. 1, chap. 7; 2, 56 and 62; 1906
edn].

k se representer.

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The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

Women in the Indies 11 believe it is shameful for them to learn to
read; this is the business, they say, of the slaves who sing hymns in the
pagodas. In one caste, they do not spin; in another they make only
baskets and mats, and should not even mill the rice; in others, they must
not fetch water. Arrogance there has established its rules and sees that
they are followed. It is unnecessary to say that moral qualities have
different effects according to the other qualities united with them; thus
arrogance joined to a vast ambition, to the greatness of ideas, etc.
produced among the Romans the effects which are known to all/

il Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, vol. 12, p. 80 [Lettre du P. de Bourzes, Madura, September
21, 1713; 12, 79-80; 1741 edn].

^See the discussion of honor, 3.5-8.

CHAPTER 10

On the character of the Spanish and that of the Chinese

The various characters of the nations are mixtures of virtues and vices,
of good and bad qualities. The happy mixtures are those that result in
great goods, and one often would not expect them; some result in great
evils, and one would not expect them either.

The good faith of the Spaniards has been famous in all times.
Justin 12 tells us of their faithfulness in guarding deposits; they have
often suffered death to keep them secret. The faithfulness they had of
old they still have today. All the nations that trade in Cadiz entrust their
fortunes to the Spanish; they have never repented of it. But this
admirable quality joined to their laziness forms a mixture whose effects
are pernicious to them; before their very eyes the peoples of Europe
carry on all the commerce of their monarchy.

The mixture that forms the Chinese character contrasts with the
mixture that forms the Spanish character. The precariousness of their
lives 13 makes them so prodigiously active and so excessively desirous of
gain that no commercial nation can trust them . 14 This acknowledged

12 [Justin, Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum] bk. 43 [44.2.3].

13 Because of the nature of the climate and the terrain.

l4 Father [Jean BaptisteJ du Halde [Description delEmpirede la Chine], vol. 2 [“Du commerce
du Chinois”; 2, 205 H; 2, 170-172 P],

313

unfaithfulness has preserved Japanese commerce for the Chinese; no
European trader has dared undertake it in their name, however easy
this might have been for their maritime provinces in the north.

CHAPTER II

Reflection

I have not said this to diminish in any way the infinite distance there is
between vices and virtues: God forbid! I have only wanted to make it
understood that not all political vices are moral vices and that not all
moral vices are political vices, and those who make laws that run
counter to the general spirit should not be ignorant of this.

CHAPTER 12

On manners and mores in the despotic state

It is a maxim of capital importance that the mores and manners of a
despotic state must never be changed; nothing would be more promptly
followed by a revolution. For, in these states, there are no laws, so to
speak; there are only mores and manners, and if you overturn them, you
overturn everything.

Laws are established, mores are inspired; the latter depend more on
the general spirit, the former depend more on a particular institution;
now, it is as dangerous, if not more so, to overturn the general spirit as
to change a particular institution.

One is less communicative in countries where each man, whether a
superior or an inferior, exercises and suffers an arbitrary power, than in
those in which liberty reigns in all conditions. Therefore, one changes
manners and mores less in them; manners that are more fixed are
closer to laws: thus, a prince or a legislator must run counter to mores
there less than in any other country in the world.

Women are ordinarily enclosed there and have no tone to give. In
other countries where they live with men, their desire to please and
one’s desire to please them too prompt one to change manners

The spirit , mores, and manners of a nation

continually. The two sexes spoil each other; each loses its distinctive
and essential quality; arbitrariness is put into what was absolute, and
manners change every day.

CHAPTER 13

On manners among the Chinese

But in China manners are indestructible. Not only are the women
completely separated from the men there, but one teaches manners as
well as mores in the schools. A lettered person is known 15 by his fashion
of bowing graciously. These things, once given as precepts by grave
scholars, are fixed as principles of morality and no longer change.

15 So says Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description del’Empire de la Chine, “Extrait d’un
livTe Chinois intitule l’Arte de rendre le peuple heureux en etablissant des Ecoles
publiques”; 2, 310-319 H; 2, 259-266 P; 2, 297-304 L.].

CHAPTER 14

What are the natural means of changing the mores
and manners of a nation

We have said that the laws were the particular and precise institutions
of the legislator and the mores and manners, the institutions of the
nation in general. From this it follows that when one wants to change
the mores and manners, one must not change them by the laws, as this
would appear to be too tyrannical; it would be better to change them by
other mores and other manners.

Thus, when a prince wants to make great changes in his nation, he
must reform by laws what is established by laws and change by manners
what is established by manners, and it is a very bad policy to change by
laws what should be changed by manners.

The law that obliged the Muscovites to shorten their beards and
their clothing and the violence of Peter I in trimming up to the knees
the long robes of those who entered the towns were both tyrannical.
The means for preventing crimes are penalties; the means for changing
manners are examples.

3i5

Part 3

The ease and promptness with which this nation has become
orderly"' has shown that this prince had too low an opinion of it and that
these peoples were not beasts as he said. The violent means he
employed were useless; he would have accomplished his purpose as
well by gentleness.

He himself saw how easy it was to make changes. The women had
been enclosed and in a way enslaved; he called them to court, he had
them dress in the German way, and he sent them fabrics. They
immediately appreciated a way of life that so flattered their taste, their
vanity, and their passions, and they made the men appreciate it.

What made the change easier was that the mores of that time were
foreign to the climate and had been carried there by the mixture of
nations and by conquests. Peter found it easier than he had expected to
give the mores and manners of Europe to a European nation. The
empire of climate is the first of all empires. Therefore, he did not need
laws to change the mores and manners of his nation; it would have been
sufficient for him to inspire other mores and other manners.

In general, peoples are very attached to their customs; taking their
customs from them violently makes them unhappy: therefore, one must
not change their customs, but engage the peoples to change them
themselves.

Every penalty that does not derive from necessity is tyrannical. The
law is not a pure act of power; things indifferent by their nature are not
within its scope/

d . , . cette nation s ’est policee. 'res sort. See note a , bk. 12.

CHAPTER 15

Influence of domestic government on political government

This change in the mores of women will no doubt affect the govern-
ment of Muscovy very much. Everything is closely linked together: the
despotism of the prince is naturally united with the servitude of women;
the liberty of women, with the spirit of monarchy.

316

The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

chapter 16

How some legislators have confused the principles
that govern men

Mores and manners are usages that laws have not established, or that
they have not been able, or have not wanted, to establish.

The difference between laws and mores is that, while laws regulate
the actions of the citizen, mores regulate the actions of the man. The
difference between mores and manners is that the first are more
concerned with internal, and the latter external, conduct.

Sometimes in a state these things are confused with one another . 16
Lycurgus made a single code for the laws, the mores and the manners,
and the legislators of China did the same.

One must not be astonished if the legislators of Lacedaemonia and
those of China confused laws, mores, and manners; this is because
mores represent laws, and manners represent mores.

The principal object of the Chinese legislators was to have their
people live in tranquility. They wanted men to have much respect for
each other; they wanted each one to feel at every instant that he owed
much to the others; they wanted every citizen to depend, in some
respect, on another citizen. Therefore, they extended the rules of
civility to a great many people.

Thus, among the Chinese peoples, one sees villagers 17 observe
between themselves ceremonies like those of people of a higher
condition; this is a very proper means of inspiring gentleness, of
maintaining peace and good order among the people, and of removing
all the vices that come from a harsh spirit. Indeed, is not freeing oneself
from the rules of civility the way one seeks to put oneself more at ease
with one’s faults?

Civility is preferable, in this regard, to politeness. Politeness flatters
the vices of others, and civility keeps us from displaying our own; it is a
barrier that men put between themselves in order to keep from being
corrupted.

Lycurgus, whose institutions were harsh, did not have civility as an

,6 Moses made a single code of laws and religion. The first Romans mixed together the old
customs and the laws.

17 See Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de I'Empire de la Chine, “De la morale du
Chinois”; 3, 157 H; 3, 129-130 P].

317

Part 3

object when he formed manners; he had in view the bellicose spirit he
wanted to give his people. Always correcting or being corrected, always
instructing and being instructed, as simple as they were rigid, these people
practiced virtues for each other, rather than showing them regard.

CHAPTER 17

A property peculiar to the government of China

The legislators of China did more: 18 they confused religion, laws,
mores, and manners; all was morality, all was virtue. The precepts
concerning these four points were what one called rites. It was in the
exact observation of these rites that the Chinese government trium-
phed. One passed all of one’s youth learning them, all of one’s life
practicing them. The scholars taught them; the magistrates preached
them. And, as these rites encompassed all the minor activities of life,
China was well governed when a way was found to make them be
observed exactly.

Two things made it possible to engrave these rites easily in the hearts
and spirits of the Chinese: the one, their extremely complicated
manner of writing which kept their spirits solely occupied with these
rites for a great part of their lives 19 because one had to learn to read
from the books and for the sake of the books that contained them, the
other, that as the precepts of rites are in no way spiritual but are simply
rules of common practice, it is easier to convince and to stamp spirits
with them than with something intellectual.

Those princes who, instead of governing by the rites, governed by
the force of punishments, wanted to have punishments do what is not in
their power, which is to give mores. Punishments will cast out of society
a citizen who, having lost his mores, violates the laws, but if everyone
loses his mores, will punishments reestablish them? Punishments will
indeed check many consequences of the general evil, but they will not
correct this evil. Thus, when one abandoned the principles of Chinese
government, when morality was lost there, the state fell into anarchy
and one saw revolutions.

18 See the classic books of which Father du Halde has given us such a fine selection.

[ Description de I’Empire de la Chine, 2, 340-458 H; 2, 284-383 P.]
l9 This is what established emulation, flight from laziness, and high esteem for knowledge.

318

The spirit , mores , and manners of a nation

chapter 18

Consequence of the preceding chapter

The result of this is that conquest does not make China lose its laws. As
manners, mores, laws, and religion are but the same thing there, one
cannot change all of that at once. And, as either the vanquisher or the
vanquished must change, in China it has always had to be the
vanquisher; for, as the mores of the vanquishers are not their manners,
nor their manners, their laws, nor their laws, their religion, it has been
easier for the vanquishers to bend slowly to the vanquished people than
for the vanquished people to bend to the vanquishers.

A very sad thing also follows from this; it is almost impossible for
Christianity ever to be established in China . 20 The vows of virginity, the
assembly of women in churches, their necessary communication with
the ministers of religion, their participation in the sacraments, the
auricular confession, extreme unction, marriage to a single woman, all
this overthrows the mores and manners of the country and strikes
against the religion and the laws at the same time.

The Christian religion, by the establishment of charity, by a public
worship, and by participation in the same sacraments, seems to require
that everything be united; the rites of the Chinese seem to order that
everything be separate.

And, as one has seen that such separation 21 is generally linked to the
spirit of despotism, one will find in this a reason why monarchical
government, indeed any moderate government, makes a better
alliance 22 with the Christian religion.

20 See the reasons given by the Chinese magistrates in the decrees they made to proscribe the
Christian religion. Lettres edifiantes et cvrieuses, vol. 17 [Lettre du P. de Mailla, Peking,
October 16, 1724; 17, 167-170; 1726 edn],

21 See bk. 4, chap. 3, and bk. 19, chap. 12 (above).

22 See below, bk. 24, chap. 3.

319

Part 3

CHAPTER 19

How this union of religion , laws, mores, and manners was
made among the Chinese

The Chinese legislators had the tranquility of the empire as the
principal object of government. Subordination seemed to them the
most appropriate means of maintaining it. As part of this idea they
believed they should inspire respect for the fathers, and they brought
together all their forces to do so. They established an infinity of rites
and ceremonies in order to honor fathers during their life and after
death. It was impossible to give so much honor to the dead fathers
without being drawn to honor the living ones. Ceremonies for dead
fathers were more related to religion, and those for living fathers more
related to the laws, mores, and manners; but these were only parts of a
single code, and this code was very far-reaching.

Respect for fathers necessarily involved everything that represented
fathers, old men, teachers, magistrates, the emperor. Respect for
fathers implies that a love be returned to children and, as a conse-
quence, implies the return of love from the elders to the young people,
from the magistrates to those who were subject to them, from the
emperor to his subjects. All this formed the rites, and these rites
formed the general spirit of the nation.

One can feel the relation that China’s fundamental constitution can
have with things that are seemingly indifferent to it. This empire is
formed on the idea of family government. If you diminish paternal
authority or if you even withdraw the ceremonies that express one’s
respect for it, you weaken the respect for magistrates, who are regarded
as fathers; magistrates will no longer have the same care for the peoples
whom they should consider as their children; the relation of love
between the prince and his subjects will also be gradually lost. Omit
one of these practices, and you shake the state. It is quite indifferent in
itself whether a daughter-in-law gets up every morning to perform
such and such duties for a mother-in-law; but if one notes that these
external practices constantly call one back to a feeling, which it is
necessary to impress on all hearts, and which comes from all hearts to
form the spirit that governs the empire, one will see that it is necessary
for a certain particular action to be performed.

320

The spirit , mores, and manners of a nation

CHAPTER 20

Explanation of a paradox about the Chinese

It is strange that the Chinese, whose life is entirely directed by rites, are
nevertheless the most unscrupulous people on earth. This appears
chiefly in commerce, which has never been able to inspire in them the
good faith natural to it. The buyer should carry his own scale 23 as each
merchant has three of them, a heavy one for buying, a light one for
selling, and an accurate one for those who are on their guard. I believe 1
can explain this contradiction.

Chinese legislators have had two objects: they have wanted the
people to be both submissive and tranquil, and hardworking and
industrious. Because of the nature of the climate and the terrain, their
life is precarious; one secures one’s life there only by dint of industry
and work.

When everyone obeys and everyone works, the state is in a fortunate
situation. Necessity and perhaps the nature of the climate have given all
the Chinese an unthinkable avidity for gain, and the laws have not
dreamed of checking it. Everything has been prohibited if it is a
question of acquisition by violence; everything has been permitted if it
is a matter of obtaining by artifice or by industry. Therefore, let us not
compare the morality of China with that of Europe. Everyone in China
has had to be attentive to what was useful to him; if the rascal has
watched over his interests, he who is duped has had to think of his own.
In Lacedaemonia, stealing was permitted; in China, deceit is
permitted.

23 Recueil de voyages au nord, vol. 8, p. 363, Lange, Journal for 1721 and 1722 [8, 363; 1727
edn].

CHAPTER 21

How laws should be relative to the mores and the manners

Only singular institutions thus confuse laws, mores, and manners,
things that are naturally separate; but, even though they are separate,
they are still closely related.

321

Part 3

Solon was asked if the laws he had given to the Athenians were the
best; “I have given them the best laws they could endure,” he replied:
this is a fine speech that should be heard by all legislators. When the
divine wisdom said to the Jewish people, “I have given you precepts that
are not good,” this meant that the precepts were only relatively good,
which sponges away all the difficulties one can propose about the
Mosaic laws.

CHAPTER 22

Continuation of the same subject

When a people have good mores, laws become simple. Plato says 24 that
Rhadamanthus, who governed an extremely religious people, dis-
patched all trials speedily by having only an oath sworn on each count.
But, Plato also says , 25 when a people are not religious, one can use the
oath only on the occasions when those who swear it, such as the judge
and witnesses, are without interest.

24 [Plato] Laws, bk. 12 [948b— d]. 25 Ibid. [Plato, Laws, 948c-d).

CHAPTER 23

How the laws follow mores

At the time when the mores of the Romans were pure, there was no
specific law against embezzlement. When this crime began to appear, it
was deemed so infamous that to be condemned to restore what one had
taken 26 was regarded as a great penalty: witness the judgment against
L. Scipio . 27

26 /n simplum : “the simple value.” 27 Livy, bk. 38 [38.60].

322

The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

chapter 24

Continuation of the same subject

The laws that give guardianship to the mother are more attentive to the
preservation of the persoi/ of the ward; those that give it to the closest
heir are more attentive to the preservation of the goods. Among peoples
whose mores are corrupt, it is preferable to give the guardianship to the
mother. Among those whose laws should trust the mores of the
citizens, one gives the guardianship to the heir of the goods, or to the
mother, and sometimes to both of them.

If one reflects on the Roman laws, one will find that their spirit
conforms to what I say. At the time when the Law of the Twelve Tables
was made, mores in Rome were admirable. One gave the guardianship
to the closest relative of the ward, thinking that he who could have the
advantage of the inheritance should have the charge of the guardian-
ship. It was not believed that the life of a ward was in danger although it
was put in the hands of one to whom the ward’s death could be useful.
But, when mores changed in Rome, legislators were also seen to
change their way of thinking. “If, in appointing guardians for the
ward,” says Gaius 28 and Justinian , 29 “the testator fears that the person
appointed will plot against the ward, he can leave the vulgar substitu-
tion 30 open and put the wardship in a part of the will that can be
disclosed only after a certain time.” These fears and precautions were
unknown to the first Romans.

28 [Gaius] Institutes, bk. 2, tit. 6, para. 2; Ozel compilation, Leyden, 1658 [2.6.2].

2t> [Corpus Juris Civtlis] Institutes, bk. 2, para. 3 [2.3]; de pupillari substitution.

30 The vulgar substitution is: “if so and so does not take the inheritance, I appoint instead of
him ...” etc.; the substitution of a guardian [pupillary] is: “If a certain one dies before [the
ward’s] puberty, I appoint instead of him . . .” etc.

^“Person” is distinguished here from estate, title, etc.

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Part 3

CHAPTER 25

Continuation of the same subject

Roman law gave people the liberty to give gifts to one another before
marriage; after marriage it no longer permitted them. This was
founded on the mores of the Romans, who were drawn to marriage only
by frugality, simplicity, and modesty, but who might be seduced by
domestic cares, by kindness, and by the happiness of a complete life.

The law of the Visigoths 31 wanted the husband to be kept from giving
more than a tenth of his goods to the one he was to many and to be kept
from giving her anything during the first year of his marriage. This
comes, in addition, from the mores of the country. The legislators
wanted to check that Spanish boastfulness which is drawn only to
excessive liberalities dramatically displayed.

The Romans, by their laws, checked some of the defects of the most
durable empire in the world, that of virtue; the Spanish, by their laws,
wanted to halt the worst effects of the most fragile tyranny in the world,
that of beauty.

31 [Lex Wisigothorum \ bk. 3, tit. 1, para. 5 [3.1.5].

CHAPTER 26

Continuation of the same subject

The law of Theodosius and Valentinian 32 took the causes for repudi-
ation from the earlier mores 33 and manners of the Romans. It put
among those causes the actions of a husband 34 who chastised his wife in
the manner unworthy of a freeborn person. This cause was omitted
from later laws ; 35 this is because the mores had changed in this regard;
the usages of the East had taken the place of those of Europe. The first
eunuch of the empress, wife of Justinian II, threatened her, history

32 Law 8 of the Code [Corpus Juris Crvilis, Code 5.17.8]; de repudiis et judicio de moribus sublato.

33 And from the law of the Twelve Tables. See Cicero, Philippicae [2.28.69].

34 “If he be proven to have used whips, a thing unsuitable for any freeborn person” [L.]
[Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 5.17.8.2; de repudiis et judicio de moribus sublato .]

3S In [Corpus Juris Crvilis] Novellae 1 17, chap. 14 [1 17.14].

324

The spirit , mores, and manners of a nation

says, with the chastisement used to punish children in schools. Only
established mores or mores seeking to establish themselves could make
such a thing imaginable.

We have seen how laws follow mores; let us now see how mores
follow laws.

CHAPTER 27

How lam can contribute to forming the mores, manners,
and character of a nation

The customs of a slave people are a part of their servitude; those of a
free people are a part of their liberty.

I have spoken in Book n 36 of a free people, and I have given the
principles of their constitution; let us see the effects that had to follow,
the character that was formed from it, and the manners that result from
it.

I do not say that the climate has not in large part produced the laws,
the mores, and the manners of this nation, but I say that the mores and
the manners of this nation should be closely related to its laws.

Since in this state there would be two visible powers, legislative
power and executive power, and as each citizen would have his own will
and would value his independence according to his taste, most people
would have more affection for one of these powers than for the other, as
the multitude is ordinarily not fair or sensible enough to have equal
affection for both of them.

And, as the executive power, which has all the posts at its disposal,
could furnish great expectations but not fears, all those who would
obtain something from it would be inclined to move to that side, and it
could be attacked by all those who could expect nothing from it.

As all the passions are free there, hatred, envy, jealousy, and the
ardor for enriching and distinguishing oneself would appear to their
full extent, and if this were otherwise, the state would be like a man
who, laid low by disease, has no passions because he has no strength.

The hatred between the two parties would endure because it would
always be powerless.

36 [Bk. 11J chap. 6 [above].

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Part 3

As these parties are made up of free men, if one party gained too
much, the effect of liberty would be to lower it while the citizens would
come and raise the other party like hands rescuing the body.

As each individual, always independent, would largely follow his own
caprices and his fantasies, he would often change parties; he would
abandon one and leave all his friends in order to bind himself to
another in which he would find all his enemies; and often, in this
nation, he could forget both the laws of friendship and those of hatred.

The monarch would be in the same situation as the individuals; and,
against the ordinary maxims of prudence, he would often be obliged to
put his trust in those who had most run counter to him and to disgrace
those who had best served him, doing by necessity what other princes
do by choice.

One is afraid of seeing the escape of a good that one feels, that one
scarcely knows, and that can be hidden from us; and fear always
enlarges objects. The people would be uneasy about their situation and
would believe themselves in danger even at the safest moments.

As those who would most sharply oppose executive power would be
unable to admit the interested motives of their opposition, they would
increase even more the terrors of the people, who would never know
precisely whether or not they were in danger. But even this would help
them avoid the real perils to which they might sometimes be
exposed.

But, as the legislative body has the trust of the people and is more
enlightened than they, it could make them revise the bad impressions
they had been given and calm these emotions.

This is the great advantage such a government would have over the
ancient democracies, in which the people had an immediate power; for,
when the orators agitated them, these agitations always had their effect.

Thus, if the terrors impressed on a people had no certain object, they
would produce only empty clamors and insults and would even have the
good effect of stretching all the springs of the government and making
all the citizens attentive. But, if those terrors arose on the occasion of
the overthrow of fundamental laws, they would be insidious, lamen-
table, and heinous, and would produce catastrophes.

One would soon see an awful calm, during which everything would
unite together against the power that violated the laws.

If, in the case where uneasiness has no certain object, some foreign
power threatened the state and put its fortune or glory in danger, at that

326

The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

time everything would unite in favor of executive power, as small
interests would cede to greater ones.

For, if disputes were formed on the occasion of the violation of the
fundamental laws and a foreign power appeared, there would be a
revolution that would not change the form of the government or its
constitution, as revolutions formed by liberty are but a confirmation of
liberty.

A free nation can have a liberator; a subjugated nation can have only
another oppressor.

For any man who has enough strength to drive out the one who is
already the absolute master in a state has enough strength to become
one himself.

Because, in order to enjoy liberty, each must be able to say what he
thinks and because, in order to preserve it, each must still be able to say
what he thinks, a citizen in this state would say and write everything that
the laws had not expressly prohibited him from saying or writing.

This nation, always heated, could more easily be led by its passions
than by reason, which never produces great effects on the spirits of
men, and it would be easy for those who governed it to make it
undertake enterprises against its true interests.

This nation would love its liberty prodigiously because this liberty
would be true; and it could happen that, in order to defend that liberty,
the nation might sacrifice its goods, its ease, and its interests, and might
burden itself with harsher imposts than even the most absolute prince
would dare make his subjects bear.

But, as this nation would know with certainty that it was necessary to
submit to them, as it would pay them in the well-founded expectation of
not having to pay more, the burdens would be heavier than the feeling
of these burdens, whereas there are states in which the feeling is
infinitely worse than the ill.

This nation would have secure credit because it would borrow from
itself and would pay to itself. It could happen that it would undertake
something beyond the forces natural to it and would assert against its
enemies an immense fictional wealth that the trust and the nature of its
government would make real.

In order to preserve its liberty, it would borrow from its subjects, and
its subjects, who would see that its credit would be lost if it were
conquered, would have a further motive to make efforts to defend its
liberty.

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Part 3

In addition, as they would in some way be answerable for the events
to which an indirect course could give rise, the surest thing for them
would be to take the straightest road.

If at certain times the nobles had an immoderate power in the nation
and the monarch had found the way to debase them while raising up the
people, the point of extreme servitude would be between the moment
of the debasement of the important men and the one when the people
began to feel their power.

It could be that this nation, having formerly been subject to an
arbitrary power, would, on many occasions, have preserved that style so
that one would often see the form of an absolute government over the
foundation of a free government.

With regard to religion, as in this state each citizen would have his
own will and would consequently be led by his own enlightenment or
his fantasies, what would happen is either that everyone would be ve^y
indifferent to all sorts of religion of whatever kind, in which case
everyone would tend to embrace the dominant religion, or that one
would be zealous for religion in general, in which case sects would
multiply.

It would not be impossible for there to be in this nation people who
had no religion and who would not for all that want to be obliged to
change the one they would have had if they had had one, for they would
immediately feel that life and goods are no more theirs than their way of
thinking and that he who can rob them of the one can more easily take
away the other.

If, among the different religions, there were one whose establish-
ment had been attempted by means of slavery, it would be odious there
because, as we judge things by what we associate with them or see as
dependent upon them, such a religion would never come to mind
together with the idea of liberty.

The laws against those who would profess this religion would not be
bloodthirsty, for liberty does not imagine these sorts of penalties, but
they would be so repressive that they would do all the evil that can be
done in cold blood.

It could happen in a thousand ways that the clergy would have so
little credit that the other citizens would have more. Thus, instead of
being separate, they would prefer to bear the same burden as the lay
people and, in that regard, make up only one body, but still seeking
to be respected by the people, they would distinguish themselves

330

The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

by a more retired life, a more reserved conduct, and purer motives.

This clergy, unable to protect religion or to be protected by it,
lacking force to constrain, would seek to persuade; very fine works
would come from their pens, written to prove the revelation and the
providence of the great being.

It could happen that one would frustrate their assemblies and would
not want to permit the clergy to correct even their abuses and that, in a
frenzy of liberty, one would rather leave their reform imperfect than
suffer them to be the reformers.

The high positions that are a part of the fundamental constitution
would be more fixed than elsewhere, but, on the other hand, the
important men in this country of liberty would be closer to the people;
therefore, ranks would be more separate and persons more confused.

As those who govern would have a power that revives, so to speak,
and is remade daily, they would have more regard for those who are
useful to them than for those who divert them; thus, one would see
there few courtiers, flatterers, and fawners, and finally, all those kinds
of people who take advantage of the very emptiness of spirit of the
important men.

Men would scarcely be judged there by frivolous talents or
attributes, but by real qualities, and of these there are only two, wealth
and personal merit.

There would be a solid luxury, founded not on the refinement of
vanity, but on that of real needs, and one would scarcely seek in things
any but the pleasures nature had put there.

One would enjoy a great superfluity there, but nevertheless frivolous
things would be proscribed; thus, because many men would have more
goods than occasions for expenditure, they would employ them
eccentrically, and in this nation there would be more wit than taste.

As one would always be busy with one’s own interests, one would not
have the politeness that is founded on idleness, and one would really
have no time for it.

The epoch of Roman politeness is the same as that of the establish-
ment of arbitrary power. Absolute government produces idleness, and
idleness gives birth to politeness.

The more people there are in a nation who need to deal with each
other and not cause displeasure, the more politeness there is. But we
should be distinguished from barbarous peoples more by the politeness
of mores than by that of manners.

33i

Part 3

In a nation where each man in his own way would take part in the
administration of the state, the women should scarcely live among men.
Therefore, women would be modest, that is, timid; this timidity would
be their virtue, whereas the men, lacking gallantry, would throw
themselves into a debauchery that would leave them their liberty as well
as their leisure.

As the laws there would not be made for one individual more than
another, each would regard himself as the monarch; the men in this
nation would be confederates more than fellow citizens.

If the climate had given a restless spirit and a broad view to many
people in a country where the constitution gave everyone a part in the
government along with political interests, one would talk much about
politics; one would see people who spent their lives calculating about
events, which, given the nature of things and the caprice of fortune
(that is of men), A are scarcely subject to calculation.

In a free nation it often does not matter whether individuals reason
well or badly; it suffices that they reason; from that comes the liberty
that protects them from the effects of these same reasonings.

Similarly, in a despotic government, it is equally pernicious whether
one reasons well or badly; it suffices that one reason to run counter to
the principle of the government.

The many people who would not worry about pleasing anyone would
abandon themselves to their own humor. The majority who are witty
would be tormented by that very wit;’ having disdain or disgust for
everything, they would be unhappy while having so many grounds not
to be so.

As no citizen would fear another citizen, this nation would be proud,
for the pride of kings is founded only on their independence.

Free nations are haughty; others can more easily be vain.

But these men who are so proud, living mostly alone with them-
selves, would often find themselves among unfamiliar people; they
would be timid, and one would see in them, most of the time, a strange
mixture of bashfulness and pride.

The character of the nation would appear above all in the works of
the mind in which one would see a withdrawn people, each of whom
thought alone.

* Translators’ parentheses.

'Here esprit is translated “wit”, although the reader needs to keep in mind Mon-
tesquieu’s more general notion of “spirit,” that is, of directed activity.

332

The spirit, mores, and manners of a nation

Society teaches us to feel the ridiculous; retirement makes us more
apt to feel vices. Their satirical writings would be scathing, and one
would see many Juvenals among them before finding a Horace.

In extremely absolute monarchies, historians betray the truth
because they do not have the liberty to tell it; in extremely free states,
they betray truth because of their very liberty for, as it always produces
divisions, each one becomes as much the slave of the prejudices of his
faction as he would be of a despot.

Their poets would more often have an original bluntness of inven-
tion than a certain delicacy of taste; one would find there something
closer to Michelangelo’s strength than to Raphael’s grace.

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Part 4

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BOOK 20

On the laws in their relation to
commerce, considered in its nature
and its distinctions

That which great Atlas taught.

VlRGIL,/4f««i[l.74l]

Invocation to the Muses*

Virgins of the Pierian Mount , 1 do you hear the name I give you? Inspire
me. I have run a long course. I am crushed by pain, fatigue, and worry.
Give my spirit the calm and the gentleness that now flee from me. You
are never as divine as when you lead to wisdom and truth through
pleasure.

But if you do not want to soften the harshness of my labors, conceal
the labor itself. Make it so that I meditate though I appear to feel. Make
it so that one is instructed though I do not teach and that, when I
announce useful things, one believes that I knew nothing and that you
told me everything.

When the waters of your spring come forth from your beloved rock,
they rise into the air not to fall back again but to flow over the meadow;
they are your delight because they are the delight of the shepherds.

Charming Muses, if you cast me but a single glance, everyone will
read my works, and what was not intended as an amusement will be a
pleasure.

Divine Muses, I sense that you inspire me, not just what is sung in
Tempe with the pipes or what is repeated at Delos on the lyre. You also
want me to make reason speak. It is the noblest, the most perfect, the
most exquisite of our senses.

1 “Speak on, O ye Pierian maidens, if it be proper for me to call you maidens” [L.]. Juvenal,
Satires (4.35-36).]

a We have placed the “Invocation to the Muses” at the beginning of Book 20, as
Montesquieu originally intended.

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Part 4

CHAPTER I

On commerce

The following material would require more extensive treatment, but
the nature of this work does not permit it. I should like to glide on a
tranquil river; I am dragged along by a torrent.

Commerce cures destructive prejudices, and it is an almost general
rule that everywhere there are gende mores/ there is commerce and
that everywhere there is commerce, there are gende mores.

Therefore, one should not be surprised if our mores are less fierce
than they were formerly. Commerce has spread knowledge of the
mores of all nations everywhere; they have been compared to each
other, and good things have resulted from this.

One can say that the laws of commerce perfect mores for the same
reason that these same laws ruin mores. Commerce corrupts pure
mores , 2 and this was the subject of Plato’s complaints; it polishes and
softens barbarous mores, as we see every day.

2 Caesar says of the Gauls that the proximity and commerce of Marseilles had spoiled them
so that they, who had formerly always vanquished the Germans, had become inferior to
them. [Gaius Julius Caesarj De hello Gallico , bk. 6 [6.24].

* Although doux can be translated as “soft,” “gentle,” with its less pejorative and more
descriptive tone, is most appropriate to Montesquieu’s meaning.

CHAPTER 2

On the spirit of commerce

The natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace. Two nations that
trade with each other become reciprocally dependent; if one has an
interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling, and all unions are
founded on mutual needs.

But, if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not unite
individuals in the same way. We see that in countries 3 where one is
affected only by the spirit of commerce, there is traffic in all human

3 Holland.

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Commerce: its nature and distinctions

activities and all moral virtues; the smallest things, those required by
humanity, are done or given for money.

The spirit of commerce produces in men a certain feeling for exact
justice, opposed on the one hand to banditry and on the other to those
moral virtues that make it so that one does not always discuss one’s own
interests alone and that one can neglect them for those of others.

By contrast, total absence of commerce produces the banditry that
Aristotle puts among the ways of acquiring. Its spirit is not contrary to
certain moral virtues; for example, hospitality, so rare among com-
mercial countries, is notable among bandit peoples.

It is a sacrilege among the Germans, says Tacitus, to close one’s
house to any man whether known or unknown. Anyone who has offered
hospitality to a stranger will point him to another house where there is
similar hospitality , 4 and he will be received there with the same
humanity. But, after the Germans had founded kingdoms, hospitality
became burdensome to them. This is shown by two laws in the code of
the Burgundians : 5 the one imposes a penalty on any barbarian who
would point a stranger to the house of a Roman and the other rules that
anyone who receives a stranger will be compensated by the inhabitants,
each according to his share.

4 “The one who was just now the host directs the guest to another host” [L.J. [Tacitus]
Germania [21]. See also [Gaius Julius] Caesar, De hello Gallico, bk. 6 [6.23.9].
s [Leges Burgundionum] tit. 38 [38.7].

CHAPTER 3

On the poverty of peoples

There are two sorts of poor peoples: some are made so by the harshness
of the government, and these people are capable of almost no virtue
because their poverty is a part of their servitude; the others are poor
only because they have disdained or because they did not know the
comforts of life, and these last can do great things because this poverty
is a part of their liberty.

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Part 4

CHAPTER 4

On commerce in the various governments

Commerce is related to the constitution. In government by one alone, it
is ordinarily founded on luxury, and though it is also founded on real
needs, its principal object is to procure for the nation engaging in it all
that serves its arrogance, its delights, and its fancies. In government by
many, it is more often founded on economy. Traders, eyeing all the
nations of the earth, take to one what they bring from another. This is
how the republics of Tyre, Carthage, Marseilles, Florence, Venice, and
Holland engaged in commerce.

This kind of traffic concerns the government of many by its nature
and monarchical government on occasion. For, as it is founded only on
the practice of gaining little and even of gaining less than any other
nation and of being compensated only by gaining continually, it is
scarcely possible for it to be done by a people among whom luxury is
established who spend much and who see only great objects.

In keeping with these ideas, Cicero said so well : 6 “I do not like a
people to be both the rulers and the clerks of the universe.” Indeed, one
would have to assume that each individual in this state and even the
whole state always had a head full of both great projects and small ones,
which is contradictory.

Yet the greatest enterprises are also undertaken in those states which
subsist by economic commerce, and they show a daring not to be found
in monarchies: here is the reason for it.

One commerce leads to another, the small to the middling, the
middling to the great, and he who earlier desired to gain little arrives at
a position where he has no less of a desire to gain a great deal.

Moreover, the great enterprises of the traders are always necessarily
mixed with public business. But, public business is for the most part as
suspect to the merchants in monarchies as it appears safe to them in
republican states. Therefore, great commercial enterprises are not for
monarchies, but for the government by many.

In short, one’s belief that one’s prosperity is more certain in these
states makes one undertake everything, and because one believes that
what one has acquired is secure, one dares to expose it in order to

6 “I do not wish the same people to be both the ruler and customs officer for the world” [L.]
[Cicero, De republica 4.7).

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Commerce: its nature and distinctions

acquire more; only the means for acquisition are at risk; now, men
expect much of their fortune.

I do not mean that any monarchies are totally excluded from
economic commerce, but they are less inclined to it by its nature; 1 do
not mean that the republics we know are entirely without the commerce
of luxury, but it is less related to their constitution.

As for the despotic state, it is useless to talk about it. General rule: in
a nation that is in servitude, one works more to preserve than to
acquire; in a free nation, one works more to acquire than to preserve.

CHAPTER 5

On peoples who have engaged in economic commerce

Marseilles, a necessary retreat in the midst of a stormy sea, Marseilles,
where all the winds, the shoals, and the coastline order ships to put in,
was frequented by sea-faring people. The barrenness 7 of its territory
made its citizens decide on economic commerce. They had to be
hardworking in order to replace that which nature refused them; just,
in order to live among the barbarian nations that were to make their
prosperity; moderate, in order for their government always to be
tranquil; finally, of frugal mores, in order to live always by a commerce
that they would the more surely preserve the less it was advantageous to
them.

It has been seen everywhere that violence and harassment have
brought forth economic commerce among men who are constrained to
hide in marshes, on islands, on the shoals, and even among dangerous
reefs. Thus were Tyre, Venice, and the Dutch towns founded; fugitives
found security there. They had to live; they drew their livelihood from
the whole universe.

7 Justin [Epitoma historianim Philippicarum], bk. 43, chap. 3 (43-3-5 i-

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chapter 6

Some effects of a great navigation

It sometimes happens that a nation that engages in economic com-
merce, needing the commodities of one country to serve as a basis for
procuring the commodities of another, is satisfied to gain very little and
sometimes nothing on the former, in the expectation or the certainty of
gaining much on the latter. Thus, when Holland almost alone traded
from the south of Europe to the north, the French wines, which it
carried to the north, in a way served it only as a base for its commerce in
the north.

It is known that in Holland certain kinds of commodities imported
from a distance often sell for no more than they cost where they come
from. Here is the reason given: a captain who needs ballast in his ship
will take on marble; he needs wood for packing his cargo, he will buy it;
and provided he loses nothing on it, he will believe he has done well.
Thus, Holland also has its quarries and its forests.

Not only can a commerce that produces nothing be useful, but so can
even a disadvantageous commerce. I have heard that in Holland whale-
hunting generally speaking almost never returns what it costs; but those
who have been employed in building the ship, those who have provided
the rigging, the gear, and the provisions, are also those who take the
principal interest in the hunt. Even if they lose on the hunt, they have
come out ahead on the equipage. This commerce is a kind of lottery,
and each one is seduced by the hope of a lucky number. Everyone loves
to play, and the most sober* people willingly enter the play when it does
not have the appearance of gambling, with all its irregularities, its
violence, its dissipation, the loss of time, and even of life.

c les plus sages. (See note *, bk. i and note b , bk. 5.)

CHAPTER 7

The spirit of England concerning commerce

Almost none of England’s tariffs with other nations are regular; tariffs
change, so to speak, with each parliament, as it lifts or imposes
particular duties. England has also wanted to preserve its

342

Commerce: its nature and distinctions

independence in this matter. Sovereignly jealous of the commerce that
is done there, it binds itself with few treaties and depends only on its
laws.

Other nations have made commercial interests give way to political
interests: England has always made its political interests give way to the
interests of its commerce.

This is the people in the world who have best known how to take
advantage of each of these three great things at the same time: religion,
commerce, and liberty.

CHAPTER 8

How economic commerce has sometimes been hampered

In certain monarchies, laws have been made which serve to lower the
states that engage in economic commerce. They have been forbidden
to supply commodities other than those produced in their country; they
have been permitted to trade only with ships built in their own country.

The state imposing these laws must be able to engage in the
commerce easily itself; otherwise, it would do itself at least an equal
wrong. It is better to deal with a nation that requires little and that the
needs of commerce render somewhat dependent; with a nation that
knows where to place all superfluous commodities due to the breadth
of its views or its business; that is rich and can itself take many products;
that will pay promptly for them; that has, so to speak, necessities for
being faithful; that is peaceful on principle; that seeks to gain, and not
to conquer: it is better, I say, to deal with this nation than with others
that are ever rivals and would not offer all these advantages.

CHAPTER 9

On exclusion in commerce

The true maxim is to exclude no nation from one’s commerce without
great reasons. The Japanese trade with only two nations, the Chinese
and the Dutch. The Chinese 8 earn a thousand percent on sugar and

8 Father [Jean Baptiste] du Halde [Description de VEmpire de la Chine], vol. 2, pp, 1 70 [“Du
commerce du Chinois,” 2, 205-206 H; 2, 170 P; 2, 297 L.].

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Part 4

sometimes as much on return commodities. The Dutch make about
the same profit. Any nation that is guided by the maxims of the Japanese
will necessarily be deceived. It is competition that puts a just price on
goods and establishes the true relations between them.

Still less should a state subject itself to selling its commodity to but a
single nation on the pretext that it will take all of it at a certain price. For
their grain, the Poles made this bargain with the town of Danzig; many
kings of the Indies have similar contracts with the Dutch for spices . 9
These agreements are appropriate only for a poor nation, which
willingly abandons the expectation of becoming rich, provided it has
secured its sustenance, or for nations whose servitude consists in
renouncing the use of the things nature has given them or in using
these things to engage in a disadvantageous commerce.

9 This was first established by the Portuguese. Francois Pyrard, Voyages , pt. 2, chap. 1 5 [vol.
2, pt. 1, chap. 15; 2, 204-205; 1887-1890 edn].

CHAPTER 10

Establishment proper to economic commerce

In states that engage in economic commerce, one has fortunately
established banks, which, by means of their credit, have formed new
signs of values. But it would be wrong to introduce them into states that
carry’ on a commerce of luxuiy. To put them into countries governed by
one alone is to assume silver on one side and power on the other: that is,
on the one side, the faculty of having everything without any power,
and, on the other, power with the faculty of having nothing at all. In
such a government, there has never been anyone but the prince who
has obtained or has been able to obtain a treasury, and wherever there is
a treasury, as soon as it is excessive, it immediately becomes the
prince’s.

For the same reason, trading companies that associate for the sake of
a certain commerce are rarely suited to the government by one alone.
The nature of these companies is to give to individual wealth the force
of public wealth. But in these states this force can be found only in the
hands of the prince. I would go further: trading companies do not
always suit states where there is economic commerce; and, if the

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Commerce: its nature and distinctions

business is not so large as to be beyond the reach of individuals, it is
better not to hamper the liberty of commerce by exclusive privileges.

CHAPTER II

Continuation of the same subject

In states that engage in economic commerce, one can establish a frec d
port. The economy of the state, which always follows the frugality of
individuals, gives its economic commerce a soul, so to speak. What it
loses in taxes by the establishment considered here is offset by what it
can draw from the republic in wealth made by industriousness. But in
monarchical government such establishments would be contrary to
reason; their only effect would be to relieve luxury of the weight of
imposts. It would deprive itself of the sole good this luxuiy can procure
and of the only bridle that, in such a constitution, it can have.

d franc.

CHAPTER 12

On the liberty of commerce

Liberty of commerce is not a faculty granted to traders to do what they
want; this would instead be the servitude of commerce. That which
hampers those who engage in commerce does not, for all that, hamper
commerce. It is in countries of liberty that the trader finds innumerable
obstacles; the laws never thwart him less than in countries of servitude.

England prohibits the export of its wool; it wants coal brought to the
capital by sea; it does not permit the export of horses unless they are
gelded; the ships 10 from its colonies that trade in Europe are to anchor
in England. It hampers the trader, but it does so in favor of commerce.

10 Navigation Act of 1660 [The Statutes of the Realm, 12 Car., vol. 2, chap. 18; 5, 246-250;
1963 edn; consider the Act of Interregnum, October 9, 1651]. It was only in wartime that
those [merchants] of Boston and Philadelphia sent the vessels carrying their goods directly
to the Mediterranean.

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CHAPTER 13

What destroys that liberty

Where there is commerce there are customs houses. The object of
commerce is to export and import commodities in favor of the state,
and the object of the customs houses is a certain duty on that same
exporting, also in favor of the state. Therefore, the state must be
neutral between its customs houses and its commerce and must
arrange that these two things never thwart one another; then one enjoys
the liberty of commerce there.

The fanning of the customs^ destroys commerce by its injustices and
harassments and by the excess of what it imposes, but independently of
that it also destroys it further by the difficulties to which it gives rise and
the formalities it requires. In England, where customs are imposed
directly/ there is a singular ease in trade: a word in writing accom-
plishes the greatest business; the merchant does not have to waste an
infinite time and have specified agents in order to conclude all the
difficulties brought up by the tax-farmers or to submit to them.

'droit.

* la finance here means the work of the financiers , tax-farmers, in regard to customs. See

note*, bk. 3.

s regie. See 13.19 (note/ bk. 13).

CHAPTER 14

On the lam of commerce that entail the confiscation of
commodities

The Magna Carta of England forbids in the event of war the seizure
and confiscation of the commodities of foreign traders, except as a
reprisal. It is a fine thing for the English nation to have made this one of
the articles of its liberty.

In the war Spain waged against the English in 1 740, a law was made ' '
that punished with death those who introduced English commodities

1 1 Published at Cadiz in March 1 740, [Seejean Rousset de Missy, Les Proces entre I'Espagne et
Grartde-Breiagne, vol. 13, Supplement of the Recueil historique , Declaration of War,
November 28, 1739; p. 252; 1756 edn.]

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Commerce: its nature and distinctions

into the Spanish states;* it imposed this same penalty on those who
carried Spanish commodities to the English states. Such an ordinance
can find, I believe, no other model than the laws of Japan. It runs
counter to our mores, to the spirit of commerce, and to the harmony
that should prevail in proportioning penalties; it confuses all ideas,
making a state crime of what is only a violation of the police.

*Here etats, “states,” are what we today would call the Spanish colonies.

CHAPTER 15

On corporal constraint

Solon 12 ordered that there would no longer be corporal obligations for
civil debts in Athens. He drew this law from Egypt ; 13 Bocchoris had
made it, and Sesostris had revived it.

This law is good for ordinary civil business , 14 but we are right not to
observe it in commercial business. For as traders are obliged to entrust
great sums for often quite short periods of time, to give them and take
them back again, the debtor must fulfill his engagements at the
appointed time; this assumes corporal constraint.

In business deriving from ordinary civil contracts, the law should not
provide for corporal constraint because it makes more of the liberty of
one citizen than of the convenience of another. But, in agreements that
derive from commerce, the law should make more of public con-
venience than of the liberty of a citizen; this does not prevent the
restrictions and limitations that humanity and a good police can
require.

,2 Plutarch [Moralia], Devitando acre alieno [828f|.

13 Diodorus Siculus [Bibliotheca historical bk. 1, pt. 2, chap. 3 [1.79].

H Those Greek legislators were blameworthy who had forbidden taking a man’s weapons
and cart as securities but had permitted taking the man himself. Diodorus Siculus
[Bibliotheca historica), bk. 1, pt. 2, chap. 3 [1.79.5J.

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chapter 16

A fine law

The law of Geneva that excludes from magistracies and even from
entry to the Great Council the children of those who have lived or who
have died insolvent, unless the children discharge their father’s debts,
is a very good one. It has the effect of building up trust in traders, in
magistrates, and in the city itself. Here again, confidence in an
individual has the force of public confidence.

CHAPTER 17

A law of Rhodes

The Rhodians went further. Sextus Empiricus 15 says that there a son
could not be excused from paying his father’s debts by renouncing his
inheritance. This law of Rhodes was given to a republic founded on
commerce: now, I believe that reasons drawn from commerce itself
should have set this limitation, that the debts contracted by the father
after his son had begun to carry on the commerce would not affect the
goods acquired by the son. A merchant should always know his
obligations and conduct himself at every moment in accordance with
the state of his fortune.

15 [Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoeia ] Hippotiposes, bk. 1, chap. 14 [1.149],

CHAPTER 18

On judges for commerce

Xenophon, in his book, Ways and Means ,' wanted one to reward those
prefects of commerce who dispatched proceedings most quickly. He
felt the need for our commercial jurisdiction. 7
Commercial business is only slightly susceptible to formalities. The

Xenophon, Ways andMeans 3.3. i jurisdiction consulaire.

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Commerce: its nature and distinctions

actions of one day have to be followed the next day by others of the same
nature. Therefore, they must be decided every day. It is otherwise in
the actions of life that have much influence on the future, but which
happen rarely. One usually marries only once; one does not make
bequests or testaments every day; one comes of age only once.

Plato 16 says that, in a town where there is no maritime commerce,
half the number of civil laws are needed, and this is very true.
Commerce brings into a country different sorts of peoples, a great
number of agreements, kinds of goods, and ways of acquisition.

Thus, in a commercial town there are fewer judges and more laws.

16 [Plato] Laws, bk. 8 [842c-dJ.

CHAPTER 19

That the prince should not engage in commerce

Theophilus , 17 on seeing a ship which carried commodities for his wife
Theodora, had it burned. “I am the emperor,” he told her, “and you
make me a shipmaster. How can the poor people earn a living if we too
ply their trade?” He could have added: who will restrain us if we make
monopolies? Who will require us to fulfill our engagements? The
courtiers will want to do our commerce; they will be more avid and
more unjust than we. The people have trust in our justice; they have
none in our opulence; the many imposts that make their misery* are
certain proofs of our own.

I7 [Johannes] Zonaras [Epitome hhtoriarum 25.25.41-42].

*Here misere means both “misery” and “poverty”.

CHAPTER 20

Continuation of the same subject

When the Portuguese and Castilians dominated the East Indies,
commerce had such rich branches that their princes did not fail to seize
them. This ruined their establishments in those parts.

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The viceroy of Goa granted exclusive privileges to individuals. One
has no trust in such people; commerce is interrupted by the perpetual
change of those to whom it is entrusted; no one manages this
commerce or is concerned that one leaves only ruins to one’s heir; the
profit stays in the hands of individuals and is not spread out enough.

CHAPTER 21

On commerce by the nobility in a monarchy

It is against the spirit of commerce for the nobility to engage in it in a
monarchy. “That would be pernicious for the towns,” say the emperors
Honorius and Theodosius , 18 “and would take away the ease with which
merchants and plebeians buy and sell.”

It is against the spirit of monarchy for the nobility to engage in
commerce. The usage that permitted commerce to the nobility in
England is one of the things that most contributed to weakening
monarchical government there.

18 Law “Nobiliores,” Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 4.63.3] decommerciis etmercatoribus, and
the last law of de rescindenda venditione [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 4.44}.

CHAPTER 22

A particular reflection

People who are struck by what is practiced in some states think there
should be laws in France engaging the nobles to carry on commerce.
This would be the way to destroy the nobility, without being of any
utility to commerce. The practice of this country is very wise; traders
are not nobles, but they may become nobles. They can have the
expectation of becoming noble without the drawback of being nobles.
They have no surer way of quitting their profession than to do it well or
to do it successfully: something usually linked to prosperity.

The laws ordering each man to stay in his profession and to pass it
down to his children are and can be useful only in despotic states , 19
where none can or should be rivals.

19 Indeed, they are often established that way.

350

Commerce: its nature and distinctions

Let it not be said that each man will follow his profession better when
he cannot leave it for another. I say that a profession will be better
pursued when those who have excelled in it can expect to attain
another.

When nobility can be acquired with silver, it greatly encourages
traders to put themselves in a position to attain it. I am not examining
whether it is good thus to give the prize of virtue to wealth; there are
governments in which this can be quite useful.

In France, that estate of the robe lying between the great nobility and
the people, which, without having the brilliance of the former, has all its
privileges; that estate which leaves individuals at mid-level while the
body, the depository of the laws, is glorified; that estate in which one
has no way to distinguish oneself but by prosperity and virtue; an
honorable profession, but one which always lets a more distinguished
one be seen: that altogether warlike nobility, who think that, whatever
degree of wealth one has, one’s fortune is yet to be made but that it is
shameful to increase one’s goods if one does not begin by dissipating
them; that part of the nation who always serve with their capital goods;
who, when they are ruined, give their place to others who will serve with
their capital again; who go to war so that no one will dare to say they did
not go; who expect honors when they cannot expect wealth, and when
they do not get wealth, console themselves because they have acquired
honor: all these things have necessarily contributed to the greatness of
the kingdom. And if, over the past two or three centuries, the kingdom
has endlessly increased its power, this must be attributed to the
goodness of its laws and not to fortune, which does not have this sort of
consistency/

‘ces sortes de constant x. See note *, bk, i.

CHAPTER 23

Those nations for whom it is disadvantageous to engage in
commerce

Wealth consists in land or in movable effects; the land of each country
is usually possessed by its inhabitants. Most states have laws that
discourage foreigners from acquiring their lands; only the presence of

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Part 4

the master can increase their value; therefore, this kind of wealth
belongs to each state particularly. But movable effects, such as silver,
notes, letters of exchange, shares in companies, ships, and all com-
modities, belong to the whole world, which, in this regard comprises
but a single state of which all societies are members; the people that
possess the most of such movable effects in the universe are the richest.
Some states have an immense number of them; they acquire them by
their produce, by the labor of their workers, by their industry, by their
discoveries, even by chance. The avarice of nations disputes the
movables of the whole universe. There may be a state so unhappy that it
will be deprived of the movable effects of other countries and also even
of almost all its own; the owners of its land will be but the colonists of
foreigners. This state will lack everything and will be able to acquire
nothing; it would be far better for it to have commerce with no nation in
the world; in these circumstances commerce has led to poverty.

A country which always sends out fewer commodities or less
produce than it receives puts itself in equilibrium by impoverishing
itself; it will receive ever less, until, in extreme poverty, it receives
nothing.

In commercial countries, silver that has suddenly vanished comes
back because the states that received it owe it; in the states of which we
speak, silver never comes back because those who have taken it owe
nothing.

Poland will serve here as our example. It has almost none of the
things we call the movable effects of the universe except the grain of its
fields. A few lords possess whole provinces; they oppress the plowman
in order to have a greater quantity of grain to send to foreigners and
procure for themselves the things their luxury demands. If Poland had
commerce with no nation, its people would be happier. Its important
men, who would have only their grain, would give it to their peasants for
them to live on; excessively large domains would be burdensome to
them, they would divide them among their peasants; as everyone would
have skins or wools from his herds, there would no longer be an
immense expense in making clothing; the important men, who always
love luxury and who would be able to find it only in their own country,
would encourage the poor in their work. I say that this nation would
flourish more, unless it became barbarous; something that the laws
could prevent.

Now let us consider Japan. The excessive quantity of what it can

352

Commerce: its nature and distinctions

accept produces the excess of what it can send out: things will be in
equilibrium as if imports and exports were moderate, and besides, this
kind of inflation" will produce a thousand advantages for the state;
there will be more consumption, more things on which the arts can be
exercised, more men employed, more means of acquiring power. In
cases in which one needs prompt aid, a state that is so filled can give it
more quickly than another. It is hard when a country does not have
superfluous things, but it is the nature of commerce to make super-
fluous things useful and useful ones necessary. Therefore, the state will
be able to give the necessary things to a greater number of its subjects.

Let us say, therefore, that it is not the nations who need nothing that
lose by carrying on commerce; it is those who need everything. It is not
the peoples who have enough among themselves but those who have
nothing at home who find it advantageous to trade with no one.

m enflure, “inflation,” means blown up like a balloon.

353

QaOCtQQaQOOCtOOAQttOftAOftttOftOCtOftQO

BOOK 21

On laws in their relation to commerce,
considered in the revolutions it has had
in the world

CHAPTER I

Some general considerations

Though commerce is subject to great revolutions, it can happen that
certain physical causes such as the quality of the terrain or of the
climate fix its nature forever.

Today we engage in commerce with the Indies only through the
silver we send there. The Romans 1 took about fifty million sesterces
there every year. Just as with our silver today, this silver was converted
into commodities that they brought back to the West. All peoples who
have traded with the Indies have always taken metals there and brought
back commodities.

Nature herself produces this effect. The Indians have their arts,
which are adapted to their manner of living. Our luxury cannot be
theirs, nor our needs their needs. Their climate requires and permits
them to have almost nothing that comes from us. They generally go
naked; the land has furnished them suitably with the clothes they have;
and their religion, which has such empire over them, makes repugnant
to them the things that serve as food for us. Therefore, they need only
our metals, which are the signs of value and for which they give the
commodities that their frugality and the nature of their land procure for
them in great abundance. The ancient authors who mentioned the
Indies depict them 2 as we see them today in respect to police, manners,
and mores. The Indies have been, the Indies will be, what they are at

'Pliny the Elder [Naturalts historia), bk. 6, chap. 23 [6. 26.101).

2 See Pliny the Elder [Naturalts kistoria\,b\i. 6, chap. 19 [6.22.66]; and Strabo [ Geographica ],
bk. 15 [15.1.39-73I.

354

Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

present, and in all times those who deal with the Indies will take silver
there and bring back none.

CHAPTER 2

On the peoples of Africa

Most of the peoples on the coasts of Africa are savages or barbarians. I
believe that this comes largely from there being some uninhabitable
countries that separate those small countries which can be inhabited.
They are without industry; they have no arts; they have precious metals
in abundance which they take immediately from the hand of nature.
Therefore, all peoples with a police are in a position to trade advanta-
geously with them; they can make them have a high regard for things of
no value and receive a very high price for them.

CHAPTER 3

That the needs of the peoples of the South are different from
those of the peoples of the North

There is a kind of balance in Europe between the nations of the South
and those of the North. The first have all sorts of the comforts of life
and few needs; the second have many needs and few of the comforts of
life. To the former, nature had given much, and they ask but little of it;
to the others nature gives little, and they ask much of it. Equilibrium is
maintained by the laziness it has given to the southern nations and by
the industry and activity it has given to those of the north. The latter are
obliged to work much; if they did not, they would lack everything and
become barbarians. What has naturalized servitude among the
southern peoples is that, as they can easily do without wealth, they can
do even better without liberty. But the northern peoples need liberty,
which procures for them more of the means of satisfying all the needs
nature has given them. The northern peoples are, therefore, in a forced
state unless they are either free or barbarians; almost all the southern
peoples are, in some fashion, in a violent state unless they are slaves.

355

CHAPTER 4

The principal difference between the commerce of the
ancients and that of today

From time to time the world meets with situations that change
commerce. Today the commerce of Europe is principally carried on
from north to south. However, the difference in climates makes people
have a great need for each other’s commodities. For example, the
beverages of the South carried to the North form a kind of commerce
scarcely pursued by the ancients. Thus the capacity of ships formerly
measured by hogsheads of grain is measured today by casks of liquor.

As the ancient commerce that is known to us was from one
Mediterranean port to another, it was almost entirely in the South. But,
as peoples of the same climate have almost the same things, they do not
need commerce with one another as much as do peoples of differing
climates. Therefore, commerce in Europe was less extensive formerly
than it is at present.

This is not in contradiction with what I have said about our
commerce in the Indies; the difference in climates is so extreme that
there is no relation between their needs and ours.

CHAPTER 5

Other differences

Commerce, sometimes destroyed by conquerors, sometimes
hampered by monarchs, wanders across the earth, flees from where it is
oppressed, and remains where it is left to breathe: it reigns today where
one used to see only deserted places, seas, and rocks; there where it
used to reign are now only deserted places.

Today upon seeing Colchis, which is no more than a vast forest
where the people, who are fewer every day, defend their liberty only in
order to sell themselves one by one to the Turks and Persians, one
would never say that this region had been at the time of the Romans full
of towns whose commerce called all the nations of the world to it. No

Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

record of this is to be found in the country; there are traces of it only in
Pliny 3 and Strabo . 4

The history of commerce is that of communication among peoples.
Its greatest events are formed by their various destructions and certain
ebbs and flows of population and of devastations.

3 [Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia ] bk. 6 [6.4.1 1-5.18].

4 [Strabo, Geographical bk. 2 [11.2.18].

CHAPTER 6

On the commerce of the ancients

The immense treasures of Semiramis , 5 which could not have been
acquired in a day, make us think that the Assyrians themselves had
pillaged other wealthy nations, as other nations later pillaged them.

The effect of commerce is wealth; the consequence of wealth,
luxury; that of luxury, the perfection of the arts. The arts, carried to the
point at which they were found in the time of Semiramis , 6 indicate to us
that a great commerce was already established.

There was a great commerce of luxury in the empires of Asia. The
history of luxury would be a fine part of the history of commerce; the
luxury of the Persians was that of the Medes, as that of the Medes was
that of the Assyrians.

Great changes have occurred in Asia. The northeastern parts of
Persia, Hyrcania, Margiana, Bactria, etc., were formerly full of
flourishing towns 7 which exist no more, and the north of this empire , 8
that is the isthmus separating the Caspian Sea from the Black Sea, was
covered with towns and nations which are no more.

Eratosthenes 9 and Aristobulus found in Patrocles 10 that the com-

5

6

7

8
9

10

Diodorus Siculus [Bibliotheca historical, bk. 2 [2.7-12].

Ibid. [Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 2.7-9].

Sec Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 6, chap. 16 [6.17.46-49]; and Strabo
[Geographical, bk. 11 [11.1.1- 11.8.1].

Ibid. [Strabo, Geographica 11.8.2.]

Ibid. [Strabo, Geographica 1 1.7.3.]

As appears in Strabo’s account Patrocles’ authority is considerable. [ Geographica ], bk. 2
[J *-7 3l-

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Part 4

modities of the Indies went down the Oxus into the Black Sea. a Marcus
Varro 11 tells us that at the time of Pompey during the war against
Mithridates it was learned that it took seven days to go from the Indies
to Bactria and thus to the river Icarus, which flows into the Oxus; that in
this way the commodities of the Indies could cross the Caspian Sea to
enter the mouth of the Cyrus; that from this river there was only a five-
day journey overland to the Phasis, which flowed into the Black Sea.
No doubt the great empires of the Assyrians, the Medes, and the
Persians communicated with the most remote parts of the East and the
West by way of the nations that populated these various countries.

This communication no longer exists. All these countries have been
laid waste by the Tartars , 12 and this destructive nation still lives there
and infects them. The Oxus no longer runs to the Caspian Sea; the
Tartars have diverted it for particular reasons ; 13 it disappears into arid
sands.

The Jaxartes, which once formed a barrier between the nations with
a police and the barbarian nations, has been similarly diverted 14 by
Tartars and no longer flows to the sea.

Seleucus Nicator formed the project 15 of joining the Black Sea to the
Caspian Sea. This design, which would have made the commerce of
that time very easy, vanished with his death . 16 One does not know
whether he could have carried it out in the isthmus that separates the
two seas. This country is very little known today; it is depopulated and
filled with forests. Water is not lacking there, for an infinity of rivers
descends from the Caucasus mountains, but the Caucasus, which
forms the north of the isthmus and whose arms 17 reach to the south,

1} In Pliny the Elder [Naturalis fitstoria], bk. 6, chap. 17 [6.19.51-52}. See also Strabo
[Geographical, bk. 1 1 [1 1.2.17], for the route of merchandise from Phasis to Cyrus.

12 Many changes must have occurred in this country since the time of Ptolemy, who
describes so many rivers flowing into the eastern part of the Caspian Sea. The map of the
Czar shows only the river of Astrabat in that part, and Bathalsi’s shows nothing. [The
“Map of the Czar” was a map of the Caspian region made by J. G. Homann under the
direction of Karl van Verden and was published in Leipzig in the early eighteenth century
(1720). Bathalsi is Basil Battazi or Vatace, a Greek cartographer who prepared a map of
central Asia (ca. 1732).}

,3 See Jenkinson’s account in the Recueil de voyages au ttord, vol. 4 [Voyage d’Antoine
Jenkinson; 4, 487; 1732 edn].

14 1 believe Lake Aral was formed from this.

,5 Claudius Caesar, in Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia ], bk. 6, chap. 2 [6.12.31],

,6 He was killed by Ptolemy Keraunos. 17 See Strabo [ Geographica J, bk. 1 1 [1 1 .14.4].

“The Hircanian Sea (the Caspian Sea), according to Strabo.

358

Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

would have been a great obstacle, especially in those times when the art
of making locks did not yet exist.

One might believe that Seleucus wanted to join the two seas at the
very place where Czar Peter I has since done it, that is, on that spit of
land where the Tanais is close to the Volga, but the north of the
Caspian Sea had not yet been discovered.

While there was a commerce of luxury among the empires of Asia,
the Tyrians engaged in an economic commerce around the whole
world. Bochart has used the first book of his Canaan b to enumerate the
colonies they sent to all the countries along the sea coast; they went
beyond the Pillars of Hercules and set up establishments 18 on the
coasts of the ocean.

In those times, navigators were obliged to follow the coast, which was
their compass, so to speak. Their voyages were long and arduous. The
laborious voyage of Ulysses was a fertile subject for the finest poem in
the world, after the one which is the first of all.

The little knowledge most people had about those who were far away
from them favored the nations that engaged in economic commerce.
They put what obscurities they wanted into their trading; they had all
the advantages of intelligent nations over ignorant peoples.

Egypt, removed by its religion and mores from any communication
with foreigners, did scarcely any commerce abroad; it enjoyed a fertile
terrain and extreme abundance. It was the Japan of those times; it was
sufficient to itself.

The Egyptians were so little jealous of external commerce that they
left that of the Red Sea to all the small nations that had ports there.
They permitted the Idumaeans, the Jews, and the Syrians to have fleets
there. For this navigation Solomon 19 employed the Tyrians, who knew
these seas.

Josephus 20 says that his nation, occupied exclusively with agri-
culture, knew the sea but little; thus the Jews traded on the Red Sea
only occasionally. They conquered the Idumaean towns of Elath and
Ezion-geber, which gave them this commerce; they lost these two
towns and this commerce as well.

18 They founded Tartessos and setded at Cadiz.

I9 I Kings, chap. 9 [I Kings 9.26]; II Chronicles, chap. 8 [2.8.17].

20 [Josephus] Contra Appian [1.12.60-68].

* Samuel Bochart, Geographta sacra sett Phaleg et Canaan (1 692).

359

Pa

It was not the same for the Phoenicians; they did not engage in a
commerce of luxury; they did not trade as a result of conquest; their
frugality, their ability, their industry, their perils, and their hardships
made them necessary to all the nations in the world.

The nations neighboring on the Red Sea traded only on this sea and
on that of Africa. The universal astonishment at Alexander’s discovery
of the Indian Ocean is sufficient proof of this. We have said 21 that
precious metals are still carried to the Indies and that none are brought
back ; 22 the Jewish fleets which brought back gold and silver through the
Red Sea were returning from Africa and not from the Indies.

I say further: this voyage was made along the eastern coast of Africa,
and the state of sailing at that time is sufficient proof that one did not go
to very distant places.

I know that the fleets of Solomon and of Jehoshaphat returned only
in the third year, but I do not see that the length of the voyage proves the
greatness of the distance.

Pliny and Strabo tell us that the route traversed in twenty days by a
ship made of rushes in the Indies or the Red Sea could be covered in
seven days by a Greek or Roman ship . 23 Using this proportion, a voyage
of about one year for the Greek or Roman fleet was a voyage of about
three years for Solomon’s fleets.

Two ships of unequal speeds do not make their voyages in times
proportional to their speeds; slowness often produces an even greater
slowness. When it is a question of following the coasts and when one is
constantly in a different situation, when one must wait for a good wind
in order to leave a gulf and have another in order to set out, a ship that is
a good sailor profits from all the favorable weather, while the other one
remains in a difficult spot and waits several days for another change.

This slowness of the Indians ships, which, in an equal time, could go
but a third of the distance covered by the Greek and Roman ships, can
be explained by what we see today in our sailing. The Indian ships
made of rushes drew less water than the Greek and Roman vessels
made of wood jot ne dwith iron.

One can compare the Indian ships to those of some nations today

21 In chapter i of this book [that is, 2 1 . i , abovej.

22 The proportion established in Europe between gold and silver can sometimes permit one
to profit by taking gold from the Indies for silver; but it amounts to little.

23 See Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 6, ch. 22 [6.24.82]; and Strabo \Geographka],
bk. 15 [15.1.14-15],

Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

whose ports are not very deep, such as those of Venice and even Italy
generally , 24 the Baltic Sea, and the province of Holland . 25 Their ships,
which have to go in and out of these ports, are built with round, broad
bottoms, whereas the ships of nations that have good ports have hulls
formed to lie deep in the water. This mechanism makes the latter ships
sail closer to the wind and the former sail almost only when they have
the wind to the stem. A ship that lies deeper in the water sails in the
same direction in almost any wind; this comes from the resistance that
the boat, pushed by the wind, finds in the water, which gives it a point of
support, and from the long form of the vessel, which presents its side to
the wind while, because of the shape of the rudder, one turns the prow
in the direction one proposes; in this way one can go very close to the
wind, that is, nearly in the direction from which the wind comes. But
when the ship is round and broad -bottomed and consequently does not
sink deep into the water, there is no point of support; the wind pushes
the vessel, which can neither resist nor go scarcely anywhere but where
the wind blows. From this it follows that vessels constructed with a
round bottom are slower in their voyages: (i) they lose much time
waiting for the wind, especially if they are often obliged to change
directions; (2) they go more slowly because, not having a point of
support, they cannot carry as many sails as the others. For if, at a time
when sailing has much improved, at a time when the arts are communi-
cated, at a time when one corrects with art both the defect of nature and
the defects of art itself, one feels these differences, what must it have
been for the sailing of the ancients?

I cannot leave this subject. The Indian ships were small, and those of
the Greeks and Romans, if one excepts those machines made for
ostentation, were smaller than ours. The smaller the ship, the more it is
endangered by bad weather. A tempest that can sink a ship would only
make it roll if it were larger. The relation between a large body and its
surface is smaller than that of a small body and its surface; from which it
follows that a small ship has a smaller ratio, that is, a greater difference
between the surface of the ship and the weight or load it can carry than a
large one has. One knows that in an almost general practice, a ship
takes cargo equal to half the weight of the water it could contain. Let us
assume that a ship could hold eight hundred tons of water: its load
would be four hundred tons; that of a ship which could hold only four

24 Italy has almost nothing but roads, but Sicily has very good ports.

25 1 say the province of Holland, for the ports of the province of Zeeland are quite deep.

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hundred tons of water would be two hundred tons. Thus, the size of the
first ship to the weight it would carry would be as 8 is to 4; and that of
the second, as 4 is to 2. Let us assume that the surface of the large one is
to the surface of the small one, as 8 is to 6; the surface 26 of the latter to
its weight will be as 6 is to 2; while the surface of the former to its weight
will be only as 8 is to 4; and with the winds and the waves acting only on
the surface of each, the large vessel with its weight will resist their
impetus better than the small one.

26 That is, to compare sizes of the same kind: the action or pressure of the water on the boat
will be to the resistance of the same boat as . . . etc.

CHAPTER 7

On the commerce of the Greeks

The first Greeks were all pirates. Minos, who had empire on the sea,
was perhaps only a more successful bandit; his empire was limited to
the environs of his island. But when the Greeks became a great people,
the Athenians gained a true empire on the sea because this commercial
and victorious nation gave laws to the most powerful monarch 27 at that
time and crushed the maritime forces of Syria, of the island of Cyprus,
and of Phoenicia.

I must speak of Athens’ empire on the sea. “Athens,” says
Xenophon, 28

has empire on the sea, but as Attica is on the land, enemies ravage it
when it makes expeditions to distant places. The principal men
permit their lands to be destroyed and put their goods securely on
some island; the populace, which has no lands, lives without worry.

But if the Athenians lived on an island and had also empire on the
sea, they would have the power to harm others and no one would be
able to harm them, so long as they remained masters of the sea.

You might say that Xenophon intended to speak of England.

Athens, filled with projects for glory, Athens, which increased
jealousy instead of increasing in influence, more attentive to extending
its maritime empire than to using it, with a political government such

27 The King of Persia.

28 [Xenophon, “The Old Oligarch’’] The Constitution of Athens [2.14-16].

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

that the common people distributed the public revenues to themselves
while the rich were oppressed, did not engage in the great commerce
promised it by the work of its mines, the multitude of its slaves, the
number of its sailors, its authority over the Greek towns, and, more
than all that, the fine institutions of Solon. Its trading was limited
almost entirely to Greece and the Black Sea, from which it drew its
sustenance.

Corinth was admirably well situated; it separated two seas, opened
and shut the Peloponnesus, and opened and shut Greece. It was a town
of the greatest importance in a time when the Greek people were a
world, and the Greek towns, nations. It did a greater commerce than
Athens. It had one port to receive commodities from Asia; it had
another to receive those from Italy; for, as there were great difficulties
in going around Cape Malea, where opposing winds 29 meet causing
shipwrecks, one preferred to go to Corinth where vessels could even be
carried overland from one sea to another. In no other town were works
of art carried so far. Religion completed the corruption of what its
opulence had left of its mores. It erected a temple to Venus, to whom
more than a thousand courtesans were dedicated. From this seminary
graduated most of the celebrated beauties whose history Athenaeus
dared to write.

It seems that in the time of Homer, the opulence of Greece was in
Rhodes, Corinth, and Orchomenus. “Jupiter,” he says , 30 “loved the
Rhodians and gave them great wealth.” He attached the epithet of
wealthy to Corinth . 31 Similarly, when he wants to speak of towns having
much gold, he cites Orchomenus , 32 which he adds to Thebes in Egypt.
Rhodes and Corinth preserved their power and Orchomenus did not.
The location of Orchomenus close to the Hellespont, Propontis, and
the Black Sea naturally makes one think that it drew its wealth from
commerce on the coasts of these seas, which occasioned the story of the
golden fleece; and, indeed, the name of Minyan is given to Orcho-
menus 33 and also to the Argonauts/ But later, as these seas became

29 See Strabo [Geographical, bk. 8 [8.6.20].

30 [Homer] Iliad, bk. 2 [2.667-669].

31 Ibid. [Homer, Iliad 2.570].

32 Ibid. [Homer, Iliad\,bV.. 1,1.381 [9.381], See Strabo [Geo|ra/iAiVa],bk. 9, p. 414; 1620 edn
[9.2.40].

33 Strabo [ Geographical , 6k. 9, p. 414 {9.2.40].

‘Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.1 186.

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better known, as the Greeks established a great number of colonists
there, as these colonies dealt with the barbarian peoples, as they
communicated with their mother country, Orchomenus began to
decline, and it disappeared into the crowd of other Greek towns.

Before Homer the Greeks had traded almost only with each other
and with some barbarian peoples, but they extended their domination
gradually as they formed new peoples. Greece was a great peninsula
whose capes seemed to have made the seas roll back and the gulfs open
on all sides as if to receive them. If one looks at Greece, one will see, in a
rather compact country, a very extensive coastline. Innumerable col-
onies lay in a wide circle around it; and in them the Greeks saw, so to
speak, everyone who was not a barbarian. Did they penetrate Sicily and
Italy? They formed nations there. Did they sail toward the Black Sea,
toward the coasts of Asia Minor, toward those of Africa? They did the
same. Their towns became prosperous the closer they were to the new
peoples. And, remarkably, innumerable islands stood as if to make a
wall around Greece.

What causes for Greek prosperity were the games it gave, so to
speak, to the universe; the temples to which all the kings sent offerings;
the festivals where people gather from all parts; the oracles, which
attracted all human curiosity; finally, taste and the arts, which were
brought to a point that whoever believes they have been surpassed will
forever be in ignorance of them?''

^This sentence ends in a question mark in the text.

CHAPTER 8

On Alexander. His conquest

Four events occurred under Alexander that produced a great revolu-
tion in commerce: the capture of Tyre, the conquest of Egypt, that of
the Indies, and the discovery of the sea to the south of that country.

The empire of the Persians reached as far as the Indus . 34 Long
before Alexander, Darius 35 had sent out sailors who descended this

34 Strabo [Geographica], bk. 15 [15.2.1].

35 Herodotus [The Persian Wars] in Melpomene [4.44].

3b4

Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

river and went as far as the Red Sea/ How, therefore, could the Greeks
have been the first to bring commerce to the Indies from the South?
How had the Persians not done this before? Of what use to them were
the seas that were so close to them, the seas that bathed the shores of
their empire? It is true that Alexander conquered the Indies, but must
one conquer a country in order to trade with it? I shall examine this.

Ariana , 36 which stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Indus and
from the Southern Sea to the mountains of the Paropamisus, was
certainly dependent in some way on the Persian empire, but its
southern part was arid, burned, uncultivated, and barbarian. Tradition
says 37 that armies of Semiramis and of Cyrus had perished in these
deserts, and Alexander, who had his fleet follow him, did not fail to lose
a large part of his army. The Persians left the whole coast in the power
of the Icthyophagi , 38 the Oreitae, and other barbarian peoples. Further,
the Persians were not sailors, and their religion itself barred them from
any idea of maritime commerce . 39 The voyage that Darius had them
make down the Indus and the Indian Sea was the fancy of a prince who
wants to show his power rather than the orderly project of a monarch
who wants to use it. This had no consequences, either for commerce,
or for sailing, and if one departed from ignorance, it was only to return
to it shortly.

There is more: it was accepted , 40 before Alexander’s expedition, that
the southern part of the Indies was uninhabitable ; 41 this followed from
a tradition that Semiramis 42 had brought back only twenty men and
Cyrus only seven.

Alexander entered from the north. His design was to march to the

36 Strabo ( Geographical , bk. 15 [1 5.2.1].

37 Ibid. [Strabo, Geographica 15.2.5].

3S Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 6, chap. 23 [6.26.97]; Strabo [Geographica], bk. 15
[15.2.2].

In order not to defile the elements, they did not navigate on the rivers. [Thomas] Hyde,
Historia religionis veterum Persarum in Sad-der [chap. 6; p. 139; 1700 edn]. Still today they
have no maritime commerce and they call those who sail the seas atheists.

^Strabo [Geographica], bk. 15 [15. 1.5 and 15.2.5].

Herodotus [The Persian Wars] in Melpomene [4.44] says that Darius conquered the
Indies. This can be understood only of Ariana; even so, it was only an imagined conquest.
42 Strabo [Geographica], bk. 15 [15.1.5 and 15.2.5],

Known today as the Persian Gulf. Montesquieu often uses the place names used in his
references.

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east, but, upon finding the southern part full of great nations, towns,
and rivers, he attempted to conquer it and did so.

At that time he formed the design of uniting the Indies with the west
by a maritime commerce, as he had united them by the colonies he had
established on the land.

He had a fleet built on the Hydaspes, descended this river, entered
the Indus, and sailed to its mouth. He left his army and his fleet at
Patala, went himself with some vessels to reconnoiter that sea, marked
the places where he wanted ports, harbors, and arsenals constructed.
On returning to Patala, he left his fleet and took the land route in order
to help the fleet and receive help from it. The fleet followed the coast
from the mouth of the Indus, along the shore of the countries of the
Oreitae, of the Icthyophagi, of Caramania, and of Persia. He had wells
dug and towns built; he prohibited the Ichthyophagi 43 from living on
fish; he wanted the shores of this sea to be inhabited by civilized
nations. Nearchus and Onescicritus kept a journal of this voyage,
which took ten months. They arrived at Susa; they found Alexander
there, feasting his army.

This conqueror had founded Alexandria with a view to securing
Egypt for himself; this was a key for opening it in the very place where
the kings, his predecessors, had locked it ; 44 and he did not dream of
commerce, the thought of which could come to him only with the
discovery of the Indian Sea.

It appears that even after this discovery he had no new views about
Alexandria. He certainly had, in general, the project of establishing a
commerce between the Indies and the western part of his empire, but
he had too little information to be able to form the project of carrying
this commerce through Egypt. He had seen the Indus; he had seen the
Nile, but he did not know about the Arabian Seas that are between the
two. He had scarcely arrived in the Indies when he had new fleets built

43 This cannot be understood of all the Ichthyophagi [the Fish-Eaters] who inhabited a coast
of ten thousand furlongs. How could Alexander have provided them their subsistence?
How would he have made himself obeyed? Here it can be a question only of a few specific
peoples. Nearchus, in the book [Arrian] Indica [28], says that at the extremity of this coast,
near Persia, he had found some peoples whose diet was less dependent on fish. I would
believe that this order of Alexander’s concerned this region or some other one even closer
to Persia.

Alexandria was founded near a beach called Rhacotes. Ancient kings kept a garrison there
to protect the entrance of the country from foreigners and chiefly from the Greeks, who
were, as is known, great pirates. See Pliny the Elder [ Naturalis historia], bk. 6, chap. 10
[5.11.62-63]; and Strabo [Geographical bk. 18 [17.1.6].

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and set sail 45 on the Eulaeus, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the sea; he
removed the cataracts the Persians had put in these rivers; he dis-
covered that the Persian Gulf was a gulf of the ocean. As he set out to
explore this sea 46 in the same way he had explored that of the Indies, as
he had a port for a thousand vessels and arsenals built in Babylon, as he
sent five hundred talents to Phoenicia and Syria in order to attract
pilots whom he wanted to settle in the colonies that he built along the
coasts, and finally, as he did immense work on the Euphrates and the
other Assyrian rivers, one cannot doubt that his design was to engage in
commerce with the Indies through Babylon and the Persian Gulf.

Some people, assuming that Alexander wanted to conquer Arabia , 47
have said that he had formed the design of putting the seat of his empire
there; but, how could he have chosen a place unknown to him ? 48
Besides, it was the most out-of-the-way country in the world; he would
have been separated from his empire. The caliphs, who conquered
faraway lands, left Arabia immediately in order to establish themselves
elsewhere.

45 hmzn. Anabasis, bk. 7 [7.7].

"^Ibid. (Arrian, Anabasis 7.7].

47 Strabo [Geographical, at the end of bk. 16 [16.4.27].

48 Seeing Babylon flooded, he considered Arabia, which is nearby, an island. Aristobulus in
Strabo [Geographical bk. 16 [16.1.11].

CHAPTER 9

On the commerce of the Greek kings after Alexander

When Alexander conquered Egypt, the Red Sea was almost unknown,
and nothing was known of that part of the ocean that joins this sea and
bathes the coast of Africa on one side and that of Arabia on the other; it
was even believed later that it was impossible to go around the Arabian
peninsula. Those who had tried to go around from each side had
abandoned their enterprise. It was said : 49 “How would it be possible to
sail south from the coasts of Arabia, as almost the whole army of
Cambyses perished crossing Arabia from the north, and the army that
Ptolemy, son of Lagus, sent to help Seleucus Nicator in Babylon

49 See the book [Arrian] Indica [43.4-5].

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suffered unbelievable ills and could march only at night because of the
heat?”

The Persians had no shipping of any sort. When they conquered
Egypt, they brought with them the same spirit they had at home, and
their indifference to sailing was so extreme that the Greek kings found
them ignorant not only of the ocean voyages made by the Tyrians, the
Idumaeans, and the Jews, but also even of those on the Red Sea. I
believe that the destruction of the first Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, and
that of several small nations and towns near the Red Sea, caused the
loss of the knowledge that had been acquired.

Egypt did not reach to the Red Sea in the time of the Persians; it
included 50 only that long narrow strip of land covered by the Nile
during its floods and enclosed on each side by mountain chains.
Therefore, the Red Sea had to be discovered a second time, and the
ocean a second time, too, and this discovery awaited the curiosity of the
Greek kings.

The Nile was explored; elephants were hunted in the countries
between the Nile and the sea; the shores of this sea were discovered by
land; and as this discovery was made under the Greeks, the names are
Greek, and the temples are dedicated 51 to Greek divinities.

The Greeks of Egypt were able to engage in a very extensive
commerce: they were the masters of the Ports of the Red Sea; Tyre, the
rival of every commercial nation, was no longer; the Greeks of Egypt
were not hampered by that country’s ancient superstitions ; 52 Egypt had
become the center of the universe.

In the Indies, the kings of Syria left the commerce of the south to the
kings of Egypt and pursued only that of the north through the Oxus and
the Caspian Sea. It was believed at that time that this sea was a part of
the northern ocean , 53 and that Alexander, some time before his death,
had had a fleet built 54 in order to discover if it connected with the ocean
by the Black Sea or by some other eastern sea toward the Indies. After
him, Seleucus and Antiochus paid particular attention to its explora-
tion; they stationed fleets there . 55 What Seleucus explored was called

50 Srrabo, bk. 16 [Geographica 16.4.20]. 51 Ibid. [Strabo, Geographica 16.4.5-19.)

52 They gave them a horror of foreigners.

53 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis kistoria], bk. 2, chap. 68 [2.67.168] and bk. 6, chaps. 9 and 12
[6.10.28; 6.14.33]; Strabo [Geographica], bk. 11 [11.1.5; 1 1.6.1]; \xnzTi, Anabasis, bk. 3, p.
74 [3-30-7] and bk. 5, p. 104 [5.5.4].

54 Arrian, Anabasis, bk. 7 [7.16.1-2].

55 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 2, chap. 64 [2.67.168],

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

the Sea of Seleucus; what Antiochus discovered was called the Sea of
Antiochus. While attending to projects they could undertake along this
coast, they neglected the southern seas, either because the Ptolemies
had already gained empire of them with their fleets on the Red Sea, or
because they had discovered an unconquerable aversion among the
Persians to seafaring. The southern coast of Persia did not furnish
sailors; they were seen there only at the end of Alexander’s life. But the
kings of Egypt, masters of the island of Cyprus, of Phoenicia, and of a
large number of places on the coast of Asia Minor, had all sorts of ways
of undertaking maritime enterprises. They did not have to constrain
the genius of their subjects; they had only to follow it.

One can scarcely understand the ancients’ obstinacy in believing that
the Caspian Sea was a part of the ocean. The expeditions of Alexander,
of the kings of Syria, of the Parthians and the Romans could not alter
their thinking; this is because one retracts one’s errors as slowly as one
can. At first only the southern part of the Caspian Sea was known; it was
taken for the ocean; as one moved north along its shores, one still
believed that it was the ocean extending inland; by following the coasts
one explored to the east only as far as the Jaxartes, and to the west, only
to the farthest points of Albania/ The sea to the north was muddy 56 and
consequently little suited to navigation. The result of all this was that
one always saw only the ocean.

Alexander’s army had gone east only as far as the Hyphasis, which is
the last of the rivers that flow into the Indus. Thus, the first commerce
the Greeks had with the Indies was with a very small part of that
country. Seleucus Nicator went as far as the Ganges , 57 and this led to
the discovery of the sea into which that river flows, that is, the Gulf of
Bengal. Today lands are discovered by sea voyages; formerly, seas were
discovered by the conquest of lands.

Strabo , 58 in spite of the testimony of Apollodorus, appears to doubt
that the Greek kings of Bactria 59 went further than Seleucus and
Alexander. If it is true that they did not go further east than Seleucus,

56 See the Map of the Czar (see translators’ note at 21. n. 12].

57 Pliny the Elder [ Naturalis historia], bk. 6, chap. 17 [6.21.63].

S8 [Strabo, Geographical bk. 15 [15. 1.3].

59 When the Macedonians of Bactria, of the Indies, and of Ariana separated from the
kingdom of Syria, they formed a great state.

This Albania is on the west coast of the Caspian Sea, north of the Kura River and
south of the Caucasus Mountains.

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they went further south; they discovered 60 Siger and the ports of
Malabar, which occasioned the navigation of which I am about to
speak.

Pliny 61 tells us that three successive routes were taken to the Indies.
First, one went from the headland of Siagre to the Island of Patala,
which is at the mouth of the Indus; it will be remembered that this was
the route taken by Alexander’s fleet. Then a shorter and more secure
route 62 was found from this same headland to Sigerus. This Sigerus
can only be the kingdom of Sigerus that Strabo mentions , 63 which was
discovered by the Greek kings of Bactria. Pliny could say that this route
was shorter only because it took less time, for Sigerus had to be further
than the Indus, as it was discovered by the kings of Bactria. Therefore,
this route must have avoided certain coasts, and certain winds must
have been advantageous. Finally, the merchants took a third route; they
went to Cane or to Celia, ports situated at the mouth of the Red Sea,
from which by a west wind they came to Muziris, the first trading town
in the Indies, and from there to other ports. One sees that instead of
going from the mouth of the Red Sea to Siagre along the coast of
Arabia Felix to the northeast, they went directly from west to east, from
one side to the other, by means of the monsoon whose changes had
been discovered while navigating these latitudes. The ancients left the
coasts only when they took advantage of the monsoons 64 or the trade
winds, which were a kind of compass for them.

Pliny says 65 that they left for the Indies in the middle of the summer
and returned toward the end of December and the beginning of
January. This corresponds exactly with the journals of our navigators.
In the part of the Indian Sea that lies between the peninsula of Africa
and the one of this side of the Ganges, there are two monsoons: the
first, during which winds go from west to east, begins in August and
September; the second, when the winds go from east to west, begins in
January. Thus, we leave Africa for Malabar at the time the fleet of
Ptolemy left, and we return at the same time.

60 Apollonius [Apollodorus] of Artemita, in Strabo [Geographica], bk. 1 1 [11.1 i.i].

61 {Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia] bk. 6, chap. 23 [6.26.96-101, 104-105].

62 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 6, chap. 23 (6.26. 101].

63 [Strabo, Geographica \ bk. n [11.11.1]: “the kingdom of Sigerdis” [L.].

64 The monsoons blow for a part of the year in one direction and for a part of the year in the
other; the tradewinds blow in the same direction the year around.

65 [Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia ] bk. 6, chap. 23 [6.26. io6j.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

Alexander’s fleet took seven months to go from Patala to Susa. It left
in the month of July, that is, at a time when no ship today dares put out
to return from the Indies. Between the first and the second monsoon,
there is a period when the winds vary and when a north wind, mixed
with the ordinary winds, causes terrible storms, especially along the
coasts. This lasts through the months of June, July, and August.
Alexander’s fleet, leaving Patala in the month of July, endured many
storms, and the voyage was long because the fleet sailed against the
monsoon.

Pliny says that they left for the Indies at the end of the summer; thus
they used the interval between the monsoons to travel from Alexandria
to the Red Sea.

See, I beg you, how navigation gradually improved. It took two and a
half years for Darius to descend the Indus and reach the Red Sea . 66
Alexander’s fleet 67 descended the Indus and arrived at Susa ten
months later, having sailed three months on the Indus and seven on the
Indian Sea. Later, the trip from the Malabar coast to the Red Sea was
made in forty days . 68

Strabo, who explains their ignorance of the countries between the
Hyphasis and the Ganges, says that among the navigators who went
from Egypt to the Indies few went as far as the Ganges. Indeed, one
sees that their fleets did not go there; they went with the monsoons,
from west to east, from the mouth of the Red Sea to the Malabar coast.
They stopped at the trading towns and did not go around the peninsula,
which lies this side of the Ganges, by Cape Comorin and the Coroman-
del coast. The plan of navigation of the kings of Egypt and of the
Romans was to return in the same year . 69

Thus, the commerce of the Greeks and Romans in the Indies was far
less extensive than ours; yet we know of immense countries that they
did not know; we engage in commerce with all the Indian nations and
even do their commerce and navigation for them.

But they engaged in commerce with greater ease than we do, and if
today we traded only on the coast of Gujarat and Malabar, and if,
without seeking the Southern Islands, we were satisfied with the
commodities the islanders would bring us, the Egyptian route would

66 Herodotus [The Persian Wars], in Melpomene [4.44].

&7 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 6, chap. 23 [6.23.96-100].

68 Ibid. [Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 6.26.104].

69 Ibid. [Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 6.26.106].

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have to be preferred to that of the Cape of Good Hope. Strabo says 70
that trade with the peoples of Taprobane* was done in this way.

70 [Strabo, Geographica ] bk. 15 [1 5.1. 14-15].

*Sri Lanka.

CHAPTER 10

On sailing around Africa

We learn from history that before the discovery of the compass, there
were four attempts to sail around Africa. The Phoenicians, who were
sent first by Necho , 71 and then by Eudoxus , 72 fleeing the anger of
Ptolemy-Lathyrus, set out from the Red Sea and succeeded.
Sataspes , 73 under Xerxes, and Hanno, who was sent by the Cartha-
ginians, went by way of the Pillars of Hercules and failed.

The main problem in sailing around Africa was to discover and
weather the Cape of Good Hope. But, if one set out from the Red Sea,
this Cape was nearer by half than if one went by way of the Mediter-
ranean. The coast from the Red Sea to the Cape is safer than 74 the one
from the Cape to the Pillars of Hercules. For those who set out from
the Pillars of Hercules to discover the Cape, the compass had to be
invented, so that they could leave the coast of Africa and sail into the
vast ocean , 75 either going towards the island of Saint Helena or towards
the coast of Brazil. Therefore, it was quite possible for them to have
gone from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean without ever going from
the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

Thus, without making this great circuit, from which one could never
return, it was more natural to engage in commerce with east Africa by

71 Herodotus [The Persian Wars], bk. 4 [4.42].

72 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 2, chap. 67 [2.67.167-170]; Pomponius Mela [ De
situ orbis], bk. 3, chap. 9 [3.9.20].

73 Herodotus [The Persian Wars ], in Melpomene [4.43].

74 Join to this what I say about Hanno’s navigation in chap. 1 1 of this book.

75 A north-east wind is found in the Atlantic ocean in October, November, December, and
January. One crosses the line and, to avoid the general east wind, one directs one’s route to
the south, or else one enters the torrid zone where the wind blows from the west to the east.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

way of the Red Sea and with the west coast by way of the Pillars of
Hercules.

In the Red Sea the Greek kings of Egypt first discovered the part of
the African coast that stretches from the bottom of the gulf where the
city of Heroum is situated to Deidre, that is, to the straits called Bab el
Mandeb. From there to the Cape of Aromatum at the entrance to the
Red Sea , 76 the coast had not been explored by sailors, and this is clear
in what Artemidorus 77 tells us, that the places along this coast were
known but the distances unknown; this came from the fact that one had
explored these ports one by one over land routes, without going from
one port to another.

Nothing was known beyond the promontory where the coast of the
ocean begins, as we learn 78 from Eratosthenes and Artemidorus.

Such was the knowledge about the coasts of Africa in the time of
Strabo, that is, in the time of Augustus. But, after Augustus, the
Romans discovered Cape Raptum and Cape Prassum, which Strabo
does not mention because they were not yet known. These two names
are Roman.

Ptolemy, the geographer, lived under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius;
and the author of the Periplus of the Erythraien Sea, whoever he was,
lived somewhat later. However, the former sets the limits of known
Africa 79 at Cape Prassum, which is about fourteen degrees south
latitude, and the author of the Periplus m sets them at Cape Raptum,
which is about ten degrees south latitude. It appears that the latter took
for the limit a place habitually reached, and Ptolemy a place one no
longer went.

What confirms me in this idea is that the peoples around the
Prassum were cannibals . 81 Ptolemy, who tells us of a great number of
places between the port of Aromatus and Cape Raptum , 82 leaves the
space from the Rhaptum to the Prassum completely empty. The great
profits from navigation to the Indies must have led to the neglect of

76 The gulf to which we give this name today was called the Gulf of Arabia by the ancients:
they called the part of the ocean that borders on this gulf the Red Sea.

77 Strabo [Geographica], bk. 15 [16.4.5-19].

78 Strabo [ Geographical , bk. 16 [16.4.4-5]. Artemidorus followed the known coast to the
place called Austricomu; the Eratosthenes, to that called ad Cinnamomiferam.

79 [Claudius Ptolemy, Geographica ] bk. 1, chap. 7 and bk. 4, chap. 9 [1.7 and 4.7]; map 4 of
Africa.

80 This Periplus has been attributed to Arrian.

81 [Claudius Ptolemy, Geographica }, bk. 4, chap. 9 [4.8(9)].

82 [Claudius Ptolemy, Geographica ] bk. 4, chaps. 7 and 8 [4.7, 8(9)].

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African navigation. Finally, the Romans did not navigate regularly on
this coast; they had discovered these ports by land and by ships driven
there in storms; and just as today one knows the coasts of Africa rather
well and the interior very poorly, 83 the ancients knew the interior rather
well, and the coasts very poorly.

1 have said that the Phoenicians, sent by Necho and Eudoxus under
Ptolemy Lathyrus, had sailed around Africa; these two voyages must
have been thought to be fables at the time of Ptolemy, the geographer,
because he puts 84 below the Sinus Magnus, which is, I believe, the Gulf
of Siam, an unknown land which extends from Asia and Africa to
border upon Cape Prassum, making only a lake of the Indian Sea. The
ancients, who explored the Indies from the north and advanced
eastward, put this unknown land to the south.

83 Note with what exactitude Strabo and Ptolemy describe the various parts of Africa. This
knowledge came from the many wars that the Carthaginians and the Romans, the two
most powerful nations in the world, had with the peoples of Africa and from the alliances
they contracted and their commerce with these lands.

84 [Claudius Ptolemy, Geographica] bk. 7, chap. 3 [7.3].

CHAPTER 1 1

Carthage and Marseilles

Carthage had a singular right of nations; it had all the foreigners who
dealt with Sardinia and beyond it to the Pillars of Hercules drowned: 85
its political right was no less extraordinary; it prohibited the Sardinians
from cultivating their land on penalty of death. It increased its power by
its wealth, and subsequently its wealth by its power. Master of the
coasts of Africa washed by the Mediterranean, it also reached to the
shores of the Ocean. Hanno, by order of the Senate of Carthage,
distributed thirty thousand Carthaginians between the Pillars of
Hercules and Ceme. He says that this place is as far from the Pillars of
Hercules as the Pillars are from Carthage. This positioning is worthy of
note; it shows that Hanno limited his establishments to twenty-five
degrees north latitude, that is, two or three degrees south of the Canary
Islands.

Hanno, from Ceme, made another voyage whose purpose was to
85 Eratosthenes, in Strabo [ Geographica ], bk. 17, p. 802 [17.x. 19].

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

make discoveries further to the south. He gained almost no knowledge
of the continent. He sailed along the coast for twenty-six days and was
obliged to return for lack of food. It appears that the Carthaginians
made no use of this enterprise of Hanno. Scylax 86 says that the sea is
not navigable beyond Ceme 87 because it is shallow, full of silt and sea
plants; actually, they are thick in this section of the ocean . 88 The
Carthaginian merchants of whom Scylax speaks may have found
obstacles that Hanno, with sixty ships of fifty oars each, had sur-
mounted. Difficulties are relative, and moreover, one should not
confuse an enterprise whose object is boldness and fearlessness with
one that is the result of ordinary conduct.

Hanno’s account is a fine bit of antiquity: the man who performed it
wrote about it; he puts no ostentation in his narrations. The great
captains write with simplicity about their actions because their glory
comes more from what they have done than from what they have said.

His subject is like his style. He does not tend to the marvelous; all
that he says of the climate, the terrain, the mores, and the manners of
the inhabitants relates to what one sees today on the coast of Africa; it
seems to be the journal of one of our own sailors.

Hanno observed from his fleet that during the day a vast silence
reigned over the continent, that during the night one heard the sounds
of various musical instruments, and that one saw fires everywhere,
some large and some small . 89 Our accounts confirm this; it has been
found that the savages stay in the forests in the daytime in order to avoid
the heat of the sun, that at night they make large fires to keep away the
wild beasts, and that they passionately love dancing and musical
instruments.

Hanno describes a volcano displaying the phenomena Vesuvius
shows today, and his account of two hairy women, who preferred to
be killed than to follow the Carthaginians and whose skins he took

86 See his Periplus, in the section on Carthage [Scylax Caryandensis, Periplus, “Carthage,”
#112, Geographi Gracei minores, i, 93-94].

87 See Herodotus [The Persian Wars], Melpomene [4.43], about the obstacles Sataspes
encountered.

88 See the maps and accounts in the first volume of the Recueil des Voyages qui ont servi d
I’etablissement de la Compagnie des Indes , pt. 1, p. 20 x [“Relation du premier voiage des
Hollandais”, 1, 206; 1702 edn; 1, 201; 1725 edn]. This plant covers the surface of the sea
so that one can scarcely see the water, and vessels can cross it only with a fresh wind.

89 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia 5.1.7], speaking of Mount Adas, tells us the same thing:
“At night it flashes with numerous fires, the playing of flutes and tambourines resounds,
by day no one is seen” [L.].

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to Carthage, is not, in spite of what has been said, altogether unlikely.

This account is all the more precious because it is a Punic record;
and because it is a Punic record, it has been regarded as a legend. For,
the Romans preserved their hatred of the Carthaginians even after
destroying them. But it was only their victory that determined whether
one would say Punic faith or Roman faith.

Some modems 90 have continued this prejudice. What has become,
they ask, of the towns Hanno describes to us and of which, even in the
time of Pliny, there remained no vestige? It would have been a marvel if
they had remained. Was it Corinth or Athens that Hanno was going to
build on these shores? He left Carthaginian families at locations
suitable for commerce and quickly made them secure from the savage
men and wild beasts. The calamities of the Carthaginians put an end to
navigation around Africa; these families surely must have perished or
become savage. I say further: if the ruins of these towns still remained,
who would have gone to discover them in the woods and marshes? One
finds, however, in Scylax and Polybius, that the Carthaginians had
great establishments on these shores. Here are the vestiges of the towns
of Hanno; there are no others because there are hardly any others of
Carthage itself.

The Carthaginians were on the path to wealth, and if they had gone
to four degrees north latitude and fifteen degrees longitude,'' they
would have discovered the Gold Coast and the neighboring coasts.
They would have engaged in a commerce there of an importance quite
different from that of the present, when America seems to have
depreciated the wealth of all the other countries; they would have
found treasures that could not have been taken away by the Romans.

Surprising things have been said about the wealth of Spain. If one
believes Aristotle , 91 the Phoenicians who landed at Tartessus found so
much silver there that their ships could not hold it, and they had their
most common utensils made of this metal. The Carthaginians, accord-
ing to the report of Diodorus , 92 found so much gold and silver in the

90 [Henry) Dodwell: see his treatise on the Periplus of Hanno. [Not Hanno, but Dissertation
deArriani Nearcho, p. 251; 1798 edn.)

91 [Aristotle] De mirabilibus auscultaiionibus [844318-23, #135].

92 (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica] bk. 6 [5.35.4].

* Montesquieu’s map placed o degrees longitude at Dakar, about 14 degrees west of
Greenwich. This location would now be about t degree west longitude.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

Pyrenees that they put it on the anchors of their ships. One must not
rely on these popular accounts; here are some precise facts.

One sees in a fragment of Polybius, cited by Strabo , 93 that the silver
mines, which were at the source of the Baetis' where forty thousand
men were employed, gave the Roman people twenty-five thousand
drachmas a day; this is about five million livres a year at fifty francs a
mark. The mountains where these mines were found were called the
Silver Mountains , 94 which shows that it was the Potosi of those times.
Today the mines of Hanover do not have a quarter of the workers that
were employed in those of Spain, and they produce more; but as the
Romans had almost only copper mines and few silver mines and the
Greeks knew only of the very poor mines in Attica, they must have been
astonished by the abundance of the Spanish mines.

In the War of the Spanish Succession, a man called the Marquis of
Rhodes, of whom it was said that he had been ruined by gold mines and
made wealthy by poorhouses , 95 proposed to the court of France to open
the mines in the Pyrenees. He cited the Tyrians, the Carthaginians,
and the Romans: he was permitted to search; he sought, he dug
everywhere; he continued to cite them, and he found nothing.

The Carthaginians, masters of the commerce in gold and silver, also
wanted to be masters of the commerce in lead and tin. These metals
were conveyed over land from the ports of Gaul on the ocean to those of
the Mediterranean. The Carthaginians wanted to receive them them-
selves; they sent Himilco to form 96 establishments on the Cassiterides
Islands, which are believed to be the Scilly Islands.

These voyages from Baetica to England have made some people
think that the Carthaginians had compasses, but it is clear that they
followed the coasts. I need no other proof than the comments by
Himilco, who took four months to go from the mouth of the Baetis to
England; in addition, the famous story 97 of that Carthaginian pilot who,
on seeing a Roman vessel approach, ran aground in order not to let him
know the route to England 98 shows that these vessels were very near the
coasts when they met.

93 [Strabo, Geographica ] bk. 3 [3.2.10]. 94 Mons Argentarius.

95 He had had charge of infirmaries somewhere.

96 See [Rufus] Festus Avienus [Carmina, Orae maritimae 4.259-264].

97 Strabo [Geographica ], bk. 3 [3.5. n) toward the end.

98 He was rewarded for it by the Senate of Carthage.

'the Gaudalquivir.

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The ancients may have made sea voyages which would suggest that
they had compasses, although they had none. If a pilot was far from the
coasts and there was a quiet time during his voyage, if at night he could
see the North Star and in the daytime the rising and setting of the sun, it
is clear that he could have guided himself as one does today by a
compass; but this would be a fortuitous event and not a regular voyage.

One can see in the treaty which ended the First Punic War that
Carthage was principally concerned with preserving its empire of the
sea, and Rome, with keeping that of the land. Hanno" declared in the
negotiation with the Romans that he would not even suffer them to
wash their hands in the seas of Sicily; they were not permitted to
navigate beyond the promontorium pulchrumi they were prohibited 100
from trading in Sicily , 101 Sardinia, and Africa, except in Carthage; this
exception shows that no advantageous commerce awaited them there.

In earliest times there were great wars between Carthage and
Marseilles 102 over fishing grounds. After the peace they both engaged
in economic commerce. Marseilles was the more jealous because,
while equaling its rival in industry, it had become inferior in power; this
is the reason for its great faithfulness to the Romans. The war the
Romans waged against the Carthaginians in Spain was a source of
wealth for Marseilles, which served as their storehouse. The ruin of
Carthage and Corinth increased further the glory of Marseilles; and, if
it had not been for the civil wars in which one had blindly to choose a
party, it would have been happy under the protection of the Romans,
who were not jealous of its commerce.

"Livy. Johann Freinsheim, Supplementorum Livianorum , decade 2, bk. 6 [16,20].

100 Polybius [Historiae], bk. 3 [3.23-27].

101 In the part subject to the Carthaginians.

l02 Justin [. Epitoma historiamm Philippicarum], bk. 43, chap. 5 [43-5.2].

’ beau promontoire. Montesquieu has translated this and other Latin terms into French,
although they are often left in Latin in English texts.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

CHAPTER 12

The island of Delos. Mithridates

When Corinth was destroyed by the Romans, the merchants withdrew
to Delos. Because of religion and the people’s veneration, this island
was regarded as a secure place ; 103 moreover, it was very well situated
for commerce with Italy and Asia, which had become more important
after the destruction of Africa and the weakening of Greece.

As we have said, the Greeks sent colonies to the Propontis and the
Black Sea from the earliest times; these colonies preserved their laws
and their liberty under the Persians. Alexander, who moved only
against the barbarians, did not attack them . 104 It does not even seem
that the kings of Pontus, who occupied many of them, took away their
political government . 105

The power of these kings increased as soon as they had subdued
these colonies . 106 Mithridates was in a position to buy troops
everywhere, to repair his losses continually , 107 to have workers, vessels,
and machines of war, to procure allies for himself, to corrupt those of
the Romans and even the Romans, to hire as mercenaries 108 the
barbarians of Asia and Europe, to wage war for a long time, and
consequently to discipline his troops; he was able to arm them, to
instruct them in the military art of the Romans , 109 and to form units of
considerable size from the deserters; finally, he was able to sustain
great losses and suffer great setbacks without being ruined; and he
would not have been ruined if the voluptuous and barbaric king had not

103 See Strabo [Geographica], bk. io [10.5.4].

104 He strengthened the liberty of the town of Amisus, an Athenian colony, which had enjoyed
a popular state even under Persian kings. Lucullus, who took Sinope and Amisus,
returned their liberty' to them and recalled the inhabitants who had fled in their ships.

105 See what Appian writes about the Phanagoreans, the Amisians, and the Sinopians in his
book [Roman History], The War with Mithridates (12.78,83,1 13,120).

106 See Appian on the immense treasures Mithridates used in his wars, those he had hidden,
those he so often lost through the treason of his people, and those found after his death.
(Appian, Roman History, The War with Mithridates 12.69,85,87,112,115.]

107 At one time he lost 170,000 men, and new armies reappeared instantly. [Appian, Roman
History, The War with Mithridates 12.112.]

l08 See Appian [Roman History], The War with Mithridates [12.69].

109 Ibid. [Appian, Roman History , The War with Mithridates 12.68.]

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destroyed during prosperity what the great prince had done during
adversity/

Thus, at the time when the Romans were at the height of their
greatness and seemed to have nothing to fear but themselves, Mith-
ridates challenged what had been decided by the capture of Carthage,
and by the defeats of Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus. Never was war
more deadly; and, as the two parties each had great power and
alternating advantages, the peoples of Greece and Asia were destroyed,
either as friends of Mithridates or as his enemies. Delos was overrun by
the common misfortune. Commerce entirely collapsed; it had to meet
with destruction, as the peoples were destroyed.

The Romans, who followed a system of which I have spoken
elsewhere 110 and acted as destroyers in order not to appear as con-
querors, wrecked Carthage and Corinth, and perhaps they would have
been destroyed by such a practice, if they had not conquered the whole
earth. When the kings of Pontus made themselves masters of the Greek
colonies on the Black Sea, they took care not to destroy that which was
to be the cause of their greatness.

"°In [M.’s] Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline [chap. 6;
PP- 72-731-

k la mauvaise fortune. Ordinarily fortune has been translated as “fortune.”

CHAPTER 13

On the genius of the Romans for sailing

The Romans cared only for land troops, whose spirit made them stand
ever firm, fight in one place, and die there. They did not esteem the
practice of seafaring people, who offer themselves for combat, with-
draw, return, always evading danger, employing stratagems, and rarely
force. This was not part of the genius of the Greeks . 111 still less was it
that of the Romans.

Therefore, they destined for sailing only those whose means were
not considerable enough 112 to give them a place in the legions;
ordinarily, the seamen were freed men.

1,1 As Plato observed in Book 4 of the Lams [7068-707!)].

I12 Polybius [Historiae J, bk. 5 [6.19.3J.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

Today we do not have the same esteem for land troops, or the same
scorn for those of the sea. Among the first , 113 art has diminished;
among the second , 114 it has increased: now, one esteems a thing in
proportion to the degree of competence required to do it well.

1 13 See [M.’s] Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline [chap.
3; PP- 33 - 371 -

114 Ibid. [M.’s Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, chap.
4; PP- 48-49)-

CHAPTER 14

On the genius of the Romans for commerce

The Romans were never notable for jealousy over commerce. It was as
a rival nation and not as a commercial nation that they attacked
Carthage. They favored the towns that engaged in commerce, though
these were not subject towns; thus, they increased the power of
Marseilles by the cession of many countries to it. They feared
everything from the barbarians, and nothing from a trading people.
Moreover, their genius, their glory, their military education, and the
form of their government drew them away from commerce.

In the towns they were occupied only with wars, elections, intrigues,
and law-suits; in the countryside, with agriculture; and in the prov-
inces, a harsh and tyrannical government was incompatible with
commerce.

But, if their political constitution was opposed to commerce, their
right of nations found it no less repugnant. “Those peoples,” said the
jurist Pomponius , 115 “with whom we have neither friendships nor
hospitality nor alliance are not our enemies; nevertheless, if a thing that
belongs to us falls into their hands, they are its owners; freemen
become their salves; and they are on the same terms in regard to us.”

Their civil right was no less oppressive. The law of Constantine,
after declaring the children of mean persons who had married persons
of a higher condition to be bastards, makes no distinction between the
women who have a shop for commodities 1 16 and slaves, tavern-keepers,

1IS Law5,para. 2 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 49. 1 5 .2 ] ; captivis et de postliminio et redemplts ab
hostibus.

H6 “Those women who preside over merchandise in public” [L.]. Law 1, Code [Corpus Juris
Civilis, Code 5.27.1]; de naturalibus liberis.

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women of the theater, and the daughters of a man who keeps a house of
prostitution or of one who has been condemned to fight in the arena:
this came down from the ancient Roman institutions.

I know well that people, filled with two ideas, the one that commerce
is the most useful thing in the world to a state, and the other, that the
Romans had the best police in the world, have believed that the
Romans greatly encouraged and honored commerce; but the truth is
that they rarely thought about it.

chapter 15

The commerce of the Romans with the barbarians

The Romans made a vast empire of Europe, Asia and Africa; the
weakness of the peoples and the tyranny of the command united all the
parts of this immense body. Then, Roman policy was to be separate
from all the nations that had not yet been subjected; fear of giving them
the art of conquering led the Romans to neglect the art of enriching
themselves. They made laws to halt all commerce with barbarians.
“Let no one,” say Valens and Gratian , 117 “send wine, oil, or other
liquors to barbarians, even for them to taste.” “Let no one carry gold to
them and see that even what they have of it is cleverly taken away,”
added Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius . 118 The transport of iron
was prohibited on penalty of death . 119

Domitian, a timid prince, had the grape vines uprooted in Gaul 120
from the fear, doubtless, that the wine might attract the barbarians, as it
had formerly attracted them to Italy. Probus and Julian, who never
feared the barbarians, replanted the vines.

I know very well that, when the empire became weak, the barbarians
obliged the Romans to establish trading centers 121 and engage in

1 1 7 Law ad Barbaricum, Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 4.41. 1]; quae res exportari non debeant.

1 1 8 Law 2, Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 4.63.2]; decommerciis et mercatoribus.

H9 Law 2 [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 4.41.2]; quae res exportari non debeant.

120 Procopius, Persian Wars, bk. 1 . (This does not appear to be in Procopius. The story about
Domitian comes from Suetonius, Vitae duodecim Caesarum, Domitian 14.2 and 7.2; on
Probus, see Augustan History, Vopiscus, Probus 28.18.8. On the topic of vineyards, there is
interesting information in Cicero, De republica 3.9.16, but this passage was not known to
M.]

l2, See [M.’s] Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, Paris,
1755 edn [chap. 19, p. 182, n. 12; 1965 edn].

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

commerce with them. But this proves that commerce was not a part of
the Roman spirit.

CHAPTER l6

On the commerce of the Romans with Arabia and the Indies

Trade with Arabia Felix and trade with the Indies were the two
branches, and almost all the branches, of their external commerce. The
Arabs had great wealth; they drew it from their sea and forests, and, as
they bought little and sold much, they drew 122 to themselves the gold
and silver of their neighbors. Augustus 123 knew their opulence and
resolved to have them either for friends or for enemies. He sent Aelius
Gallus from Egypt to Arabia. Gallus found the peoples idle, quiet, and
unwarlike. He fought battles, staged sieges, and lost only seven
soldiers, but the perfidy of his guides, the marching, the climate, along
with hunger, thirst, sickness, and ill-chosen measures made him lose
his army.

One had, therefore, to be content to trade with the Arabs as other
peoples had, that is, to bring them gold and silver for their commodi-
ties. Commerce continues with them in the same manner today; the
caravan of Aleppo and the royal vessel of Suez take immense sums
there . 124

Nature destined the Arabs to commerce; she had not destined them
for war; but, when these tranquil peoples found themselves between
the Parthians and the Romans, they became the auxiliaries of both.
Aelius Gallus had found them a commercial people, Mohammed
found them warriors; he gave them enthusiasm, and they became
conquerors.

The Romans did considerable commerce in the Indies. Strabo 125
learned in Egypt that the Romans employed one hundred and twenty
ships in that commerce; it was still sustained only by their silver. They

122 Pliny the Elder [Naturalis historia], bk. 7, chap. 28 [6.32.162]; and Strabo [Geographical,
bk. 16 [16.4.22].

123 Ibid. [Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 6.32.162, and Strabo, Geographica 16.4.22].

124 The caravans of Aleppo and Suez take two million of our money there and an equal sum is
smuggled in; the royal vessel of Suez also takes two million there.

125 [Strabo, Geographica ] bk. 2, p. 81 [2.5.12].

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sent fifty million sesterces there every year. Pliny 126 says that the
commodities they brought back were sold in Rome at a hundred times
their cost. I believe he speaks too generally; if this profit is made once,
everyone will want to make it, and, from then on, no one will make
it.

One can enquire whether it was to the Romans’ advantage to engage
in commerce with Arabia and the Indies. They had to send their silver
there, and they did not have, as we do, the resource of America, which
replaces what we send. I am persuaded that one of the reasons for the
increase in the numerary value of their monies/ that is, for the
establishment of copper or nickel coinage, was the scarcity of silver
caused by its continual transport to the Indies. For if the goods of this
country were sold in Rome at a hundred times their cost, the profit of
the Romans was made from Romans themselves and did not enrich the
empire.

One will be able to say, on the other hand, that this commerce
procured a great navigation for the Romans, that is, a great power; that
new commodities increased internal commerce, favored the arts,
supported industiy; that the number of citizens increased in proportion
to the new means for making a living; that this new commerce
produced luxury, which we have proved to be as favorable to the
government of one alone as it is fatal to that of many; that this
establishment dated from the fall of their republic; that the luxury of
Rome was necessary; and that a town that attracted all the wealth of the
universe had to pay for that wealth with her luxury.

Strabo 127 says that the Romans’ commerce with the Indies was even
more considerable than that of the kings of Egypt; and it is singular that
the Romans, who knew little about commerce, paid more attention to
commerce with the Indies than did the kings of Egypt, who had it, so to
speak, under their noses. This must be explained.

After the death of Alexander, the kings of Egypt established a
maritime commerce with the Indies; and the kings of Syria, who held
the easternmost provinces of the empire and consequently the Indies,
maintained the commerce by both land and river we have mentioned in

126 [Pliny the Elder, Naturalis hisloria] bk. 6, chap. 23 [6.26. iorj.

127 He says in bk. 1 2 that the Romans used 1 20 ships there; and in bk. 1 7, that the Greek kings
sent scarcely twenty. [Strabo, Geographica 2.5.12 and 17.1.13.]

7 More units of the money were required for each unit of silver.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

Chapter 6, which was made easier by the establishment of Macedonian
colonies: the result was that Europe communicated with the Indies
both by way of Egypt and by way of the kingdom of Syria. The
dismemberment of the kingdom of Syria, from which the kingdom of
Bactria was formed, did no harm to this commerce. Marinus, the
Tyrian, who is cited by Ptolemy, 128 speaks of the discoveries made in
the Indies by some Macedonian merchants. Discoveries not made by
the expeditions of the kings were made by these merchants. We see in
Ptolemy 129 that they went from the Stone Tower 130 to Sera; and their
discovery of a market town so distant, situated in the eastern and
northern part of China, was a kind of wonder. Thus, under the kings of
Syria and of Bactria, commodities from southern India passed by way
of the Indus, the Oxus, and the Caspian Sea, to the west; and those of
the more easterly and northerly regions were carried from Sera, the
Stone Tower, and other market towns to the Euphrates. These
merchants followed a route that lay along forty degrees north latitude,
through the countries situated in western China, which had more of a
police then than today because the Tartars had not yet tainted them.

Now, while the empire of Syria was expanding its commerce so
greatly over land, Egypt did not much increase its maritime commerce.

The Parthians appeared and founded their empire; and, when Egypt
fell under Roman power, this empire was at its full force and at its full
extent.

The Romans and the Parthians were two rival powers, who fought,
not to know which of them should reign, but which should exist.
Uninhabited areas formed between the two empires; one always went
armed between the empires; for from there being commerce, there was
not even communication. Ambition, jealousy, religion, hatred, and
mores completed the separation. Thus commerce between the west
and the east, which had followed several routes, now followed only one;
and as Alexandria had become the only market town, it grew.

I shall say but a word about internal commerce. Its principal branch
was in the grains that were ordered for the sustenance of the Roman
people; this was more a concern of the police than an object for

l28 [Claudius Ptolemy, Geographica ] bk. i, chap. 2 [1.11).

129 [Claudius Ptolemy, Geographica ] bk. 6, chap. 13 [6.13].

1,0 Our best maps place the Stone Tower at 100 longitude and at about 40 latitude. [These
measurements refer to the map in this text. The Stone Tower was a fortification
mentioned by ancient geographers that stood on the Bactrian frontier. See bk. 21, nA]

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commerce. In these circumstances sailors received certain privileges 131
because the health of the empire depended on their vigilance.

131 Suetonius [Vitae duodecim Caesarum ], Claudius [18-19]. Law 7, Codex Theodosianus
[! 3. 5. 7]; de naviculariis.

CHAPTER 17

On commerce after the destruction of the
Romans in the West

The Roman empire was invaded, and one of the effects of the general
calamity was the destruction of commerce. The barbarians regarded it
at first as only an object for their banditry, and when they established
themselves, they honored it no more than they did agriculture and the
other professions of the vanquished people.

Soon there was almost no more commerce in Europe; the nobility,
who reigned everywhere, did not trouble themselves with it.

The law of the Visigoths 132 permitted individuals to occupy half the
bed on the great rivers, provided the other half remained free for nets
and boats; there must not have been much commerce in the countries
they conquered.

At that time the senseless rights of escheatage and shipwreck were
established; men thought that, as foreigners were not united with them
by any communication of the civil right, they did not owe them, on the
one hand, justice of any sort or, on the other, pity of any sort.

Given the narrow bounds within which the northern peoples lived,
everything was foreign to them; given their poverty, eveiything was an
object of wealth to them. Established before their conquests on the
shores of a confined sea full of reefs, they drew profit from the reefs
themselves.

But the Romans, who made laws for the whole universe, had made
very humane ones concerning shipwrecks ; 133 they restrained in that
regard the banditry of those who inhabited the coasts, and furthermore,
they restrained their rapacious fisc . 134

xn [Lex Wisigothorum ] bk. 8, tit. 4, para. 9 (8.4.29].

133 The entire title [Corpus Juris Civilis, Digest 47.9]; de incendio ruina naufragio rate nave
expugnata ; Code [Corpus Juris Civilis, Code 11.6]; de naufragiis, and Law 3 [ Corpus Juris
Civilis, Digest 48.8.1 .3]; ad legem Comeliam desicariis et veneficis.

134 Law 1 [Corpus Juris Civilis], Code [11.6(5).!]; de naufragiis.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

chapter 18

A particular regulation

A law of the Visigoths , 135 however, had a provision favorable to
commerce: it ordered that the merchants who came from across the sea
would be judged by the laws and the judges of their own nation when
differences sprang up among them. This was founded on the usage
established among all these combinations of peoples, that each man
should live under his own law, something I shall discuss later at
length.™

135 [Lex Wisigothorum] bk. n, tit. 3, para. 2 [1 1.3.2].

"See Book 28.

CHAPTER 19

On commerce after the weakening of the Romans in the East

The Mohammedans appeared, conquered, and were divided. Egypt
had its own sovereign. It continued to engage in commerce with the
Indies. Master of the goods of that country, it attracted the wealth of all
the others. Its sultans were the most powerful princes of those times;
one can see in history how, with a constant and well-managed force,
they checked the ardor, fire, and impetuosity of the crusaders.

CHAPTER 20

How commerce in Europe penetrated barbarism

When the philosophy of Aristotle was brought to the West, the shrewd
minds, who are the great minds in times of ignorance, found it very
agreeable. The schoolmen were infatuated with it and took from this
philosopher 136 many explanations on lending at interest, whereas its
very natural source was the gospel; they condemned it without distinc-

136 See Aristotle, Pol , bk. 1, chaps. 9, 10 [i256b40-i258b8].

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tion and in every case. Thus, commerce, which was the profession only
of mean people, also became that of dishonest people; for, whenever
one prohibits a thing that is naturally permitted or necessary, one only
makes dishonest the people who do it.

Commerce passed to a nation then covered with infamy, and soon it
was no longer distinguished from the most horrible usuries, from
monopolies, from the levy of subsidies, and from all the dishonest
means of acquiring silver.

The Jews , 137 who were made wealthy by their exactions, were
pillaged with the same tyranny by the princes, a thing that consoled the
people and did not relieve them.

What happened in England will give an idea of what was done in
other countries. When King John 138 imprisoned the Jews in order to
have their goods, there were few who did not have at least an eye put
out; thus did this king conduct his chamber of justice. A Jew who had
had seven teeth pulled out, one each day, gave ten thousand silver
marks on the eighth. From Aaron, a Jew of York, Henry III got fourteen
thousand silver marks and ten thousand for the queen. In those times,
one did violently what is done in Poland today with some measure. As
the kings were not able to search into the pockets of their subjects
because of their privileges, they tortured the Jews, who were not
regarded as citizens.

Finally, the custom was introduced of confiscating the goods of the
Jews who embraced Christianity. We know of this outlandish custom
from the law abrogating it . 139 The reasons given for it have been veiy
empty; it has been said that one wanted to test them and make nothing
remain of their enslavement to the devil. But, it is clear that this
confiscation was a kind of right of amortization 140 of the taxes which the

137 See in [Pierre de Marca] Marca Hispanica, the constitutions of Aragon of the years 1228
[chap. 507, pp. 1415-1416; see alsopp. 522-528; 1688 edn] and 1231 [chap. 51 1, 1233,
p. 1427; 1688 edn]; in [Nicolas] Brussel [Nouvel exameti del’usage general des fiefs en France
pendant leXle, leXIIe, leXIIIe et leXIVe siecle ], the agreement of 1 206 reached between the
king, the countess of Champagne, and Guy de Dampierre. [Actually 1 200, vol. 2, Chartres,
lettres-patentes , traites; xxii-xxiii; 1727 edn.}

138 [John] Stow, in his Survey of London, bk. 3, p. 54 [“Coleman Street Ward”; 1, 279-280;
1908 edn; pp. 250-251; 1929 edn],

139 Edict given at Baville, April 4, 1392. [Actually Abbeville, April 25, 1393. Recueil general des
anciennes lots franaises, #181; 6, 728-729.]

140 In France, the Jews were serfs subject to mortmain and the lords inherited from them.
[Nicolas] Brussel reports an agreement of 1 206 between the king and Thibaut, Count of
Champagne, by which it was agreed that the Jews of the one would not lend in the land of

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

prince or the lords levied on the Jews and which they were denied when
the latter embraced Christianity. In those times, men were regarded as
lands. And, I shall note in passing how much one has toyed with that
nation from one century to another. Their goods were confiscated
when they wanted to be Christians, and soon afterwards they were
burned when they did not want to be Christians.

Nevertheless, one saw commerce leave this seat of harassment and
despair. The Jews, proscribed by each country in turn, found the
means for saving their effects. In that way, they managed to fix their
refuges forever; a prince who wanted very much to be rid of them would
not, for all that, be in a humor to rid himself of their silver.

They invented letters of exchange , 141 and in this way commerce was
able to avoid violence and maintain itself everywhere, for the richest
trader had only invisible goods, which could be sent everywhere and
leave no trace anywhere.

Theologians were obliged to curb their principles, and commerce,
which had been violently linked to bad faith, returned, so to speak, to
the bosom of integrity.

Thus, to the speculations of the schoolmen we owe all the mis-
fortunes 142 that accompanied the destruction of commerce; and to the
avarice of princes we owe the establishment of a device that puts it, in a
way, out of their power.

Since that time princes have had to govern themselves more wisely
than they themselves would have thought, for it turned out that great
acts of authority were so clumsy that experience itself has made known
that only goodness of government brings prosperity.

One has begun to be cured of Machiavellianism, and one will
continue to be cured of it. There must be more moderation in councils.
What were formerly called coups d'etat would at present, apart from
their horror, be only imprudences.

And, happily, men are in a situation such that, though their passions

the other. [Nicolas Brussel, Nouvel examen de I’usage general des fiefs en France pendant leXIe,
leXIIe, le XHIe et le XlVe siecles. Actually 1200, vol. 2, Chartes, lettres-patentes, traites\ xxii-
xxiii; 1727 edn.]

141 It is known that under Philip Augustus and Philip the Tall, the Jews, driven out of France
took refuge in Lombardy and that there they gave the foreign traders and travelers secret
letters for those to whom they had entrusted their effects in France, with which their debts
were paid.

,42 See, in the Corpus of the Law, Novellae Leonis 83, which revokes the law of Basil, his
father. The law of Basil is in [Konstantin] Hermenopoulus [Manuale legum sive Hexabiblos]
under “Leon,” bk. 3, tit. 7, para. 27 [3.7.24].

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inspire in them the thought of being wicked, they nevertheless have an
interest in not being so.

CHAPTER 21

The discovery of two new worlds: the state of
Europe in this regard

The compass opened the universe, so to speak. Discovery was made of
Asia and Africa of which only some coasts had been known, and of
America, which had been completely unknown.

The Portuguese, sailing the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the southern
tip of Africa; they saw a vast sea; it carried them to the East Indies.
Their perils on this sea and the discovery of Mozambique, Melinde,
and Calicut were sung by de Camoens, " in whose poetry one feels
something of the charms of the Odyssey and the magnificence of the
Aeneid.

Until then the Venetians had engaged in commerce with the Indies
through the countries of the Turks and had pursued it in the midst of
insults and outrages. By the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and
by other discoveries made soon after, Italy was no longer at the center
of the commercial world; it was in a comer of the universe, so to speak,
and it remains there today. As the commerce of the Levant itself
depends today on that done by the great nations in the two Indies, Italy
engages in it now only in a secondary way.

The Portuguese dealt in the Indies as conquerors; the laws 143
hampering commerce that the Dutch impose at present on the com-
merce of the petty Indian princes were established by the Portuguese
before them.

The House of Austria had a prodigious fortune. Charles inherited
Burgundy together with Castile and Aragon; he succeeded to an
empire; and, in order to procure for him a new kind of greatness, the
universe expanded and a new world obedient to him appeared.

Christopher Columbus discovered America, and, though Spain sent

143 See the account of Francois Pyrurd [Voyage], pt. 2, chap. 15 [vol. 2,pt. i,chap. 15; 2, 204-
205; 1887-1890 edn].

"Luis Vaz de Camoens.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

no more forces there than a minor European prince could have sent, it
brought into subjection two great empires and other great states.

While the Spanish were discovering and conquering in the west, the
Portuguese were extending their conquests and discoveries to the east:
these two nations met; they had recourse to Pope Alexander VI, who
made the famous line of demarcation and thus gave judgment on a
great lawsuit.

But the other nations of Europe did not let them enjoy this division in
quiet; the Dutch drove the Portuguese out of much of the East Indies,
and various nations set up establishments in America.

At first, the Spanish considered the newly discovered lands as
objects of conquest; peoples more refined than they saw them as
objects of commerce and as such directed their attention to them.
Many peoples acted so wisely that they granted empire to trading
companies who, governing these distant states only for trade, made a
great secondary power without encumbering the principal state.

The colonies formed there are in a kind of dependence of which
there are very few examples among the ancient colonies, because those
of today belong either to the state itself or to some commercial company
established in that state.

The purpose of these colonies is to engage in commerce under
better conditions than one has with neighboring peoples with whom all
advantages are reciprocal. It has been established that only the mother
country can trade with the colony, and this was done with very good
reason, for the goal of the establishment was to extend commerce, not
to found a town or a new empire.

Thus, in Europe it remains a fundamental law that any commerce
with a foreign colony is regarded as a pure monopoly enforceable by the
laws of the country; and one must not judge this by the laws and
examples of ancient peoples , 144 which are hardly applicable.

It is acknowledged that the commerce established between mother
countries does not include permission to trade in the colonies, where it
continues to be prohibited to them.

The disadvantage to the colonies, which lose the liberty of com-
merce, is visibly compensated by the protection of the mother
country , 145 which defends them by her arms or maintains them by her
laws.

144 Except the Carthaginians, as seen in the treaty ending the First Punic War.

145 In the language of the ancients, the mother country [metropolis] is the state that has
founded the colony.

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What follows from this is a third law of Europe, that, when foreign
commerce is prohibited with the colony, one can navigate its seas only
when this is established by treaties.

Nations, which are to the entire universe what individuals are to a
state, govern themselves as do the latter by natural right and by laws
they have made for themselves. A people can give up the sea to another,
as it can give up land. The Carthaginians required 146 the Romans to
navigate no further than certain limits, just as the Greeks had required
the king of Persia to stay as far away from the sea coast 147 as a horse
could run a race.

The extreme distance of our colonies is not a drawback for their
security; yet if the mother country is far away for their defense, the
nations that are rivals of the mother country are no less far away for
their conquest.

In addition, this distance makes those who go there to establish
themselves unable to take up the way of life of such a different climate;
they are obliged to get all the comforts of life from the country from
which they have come. The Carthaginians , 148 in order to make the
Sardinians and the Corsicans more dependent, prohibited them from
planting, sowing, or doing anything of the like on penalty of death; they
sent them their food from Africa. We have come to the same point
without making such harsh laws. Our colonies in the Antilles are
admirable; they have objects of commerce that we do not and cannot
have; they lack that which is the object of our commerce.

The consequence of the discovery of America was to link Asia and
Africa to Europe. America furnished Europe with the material for its
commerce in that vast part of Asia called the East Indies.

Silver, that metal so useful to commerce as a sign, was also the basis
for the greatest commerce of the universe as a commodity. Finally,
voyages to Africa became necessary; they furnished men to work the
mines and lands of America.

Europe has reached such a high degree of power that nothing in
history is comparable to it, if one considers the immensity of
expenditures, the size of military engagements, the number of troops,

146 Polybius [Historiae], bk. 3 [3.22-24].

147 The king of Persia was obliged by treaty to sail no war vessel beyond the Cyanean rocks
and the Chelidonian Islands. In Plutarch [ Fit .] , Cimon [13.4].

148 Aristotle, De mirabilibus auscultationibus [838b26-29, #100]; Livy, decade 2 bk. 7 [in
Johann Freinsheim, Supplementorum Livianorum 17.15].

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

and their continuous upkeep, even when they are the most useless and
are only for ostentation.

Father du Halde 149 says that the internal commerce of China is
greater than that of all Europe. This might be, if our external
commerce did not increase our internal commerce. Europe carries on
the commerce and navigation of the other three parts of the world, just
as France, England, and Holland carry on nearly all the navigation and
commerce of Europe.

149 [Jean Baptiste du Halde, Description de la Chine] bk. 2, p. 170 [“Du commerce des
Chinois”; 2, 204 H; 2, 169 P; 2, 296 L].

CHAPTER 22

On the health that Spain drew from America

If Europe 150 has found so many advantages in commerce with America,
it would be natural to believe that Spain would have gained even greater
ones. It drew from the newly discovered world so prodigious a quantity
of gold and silver that there was no possible comparison with what there
had previously been.

But (what one would never have suspected), poverty made it fail
almost everywhere. Philip II, who succeeded Charles, was obliged to
declare bankruptcy, as everyone knows, and scarcely any prince has
even suffered more than he from the grumbling, the insolence, and the
rebelliousness of his invariably poorly paid troops.

After this time, the Spanish monarchy went into an uninterrupted
decline. This was because there was an internal and physical vice in the
nature of this wealth, which made it hollow, and this vice increased
daily.

Gold and silver are a wealth of fiction or of sign. These signs are very
durable and almost indestructible by their nature. The more they
increase, the more they lose of their worth, because they represent
fewer things.

When they conquered Mexico and Peru, the Spanish abandoned
natural wealth in order to have a wealth of sign, which gradually

l50 This appeared more than twenty years ago, in a small manuscript work of the author, and
has been almost entirely incorporated into this one.

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became debased. Gold and silver were very scarce in Europe; and
Spain, suddenly mistress of a great quantity of these metals, conceived
expectations she had never had before. The wealth found in the
conquered countries was not, however, in proportion to that of their
mines. The Indians hid part of it, and moreover these peoples, who
used gold and silver only for the magnificence of temples of their gods
and palaces of their kings, did not search for it with the same avarice as
we; finally, they did not have the secret of extracting metals from all
their mines, but only from those where fire separated the metal, as they
did not know how to use mercury and perhaps were even unfamiliar
with it.

Nevertheless, soon there was double the silver in Europe; this was
evident when the price of everything purchasable doubled.

The Spanish worked the mines, excavated the mountains, and
invented machines to draw the waters, break ore and separate it; and, as
they mocked the lives of the Indians, they worked them mercilessly.
There was soon double the silver in Europe, and the profit diminished
by half for Spain, which had each year only the same quantity of a metal
which had become half as precious.

As the time doubled, silver doubled again, and the profit again
decreased by half.

The profit decreased by more than half; here is how.

In order to take gold from the mines, in order to give it the required
preparation and carry it to France, there had to be some expense. I
assume that it was as i is to 64; when silver had doubled once, and was
consequently half as precious, the expense was as 2 is to 64. Thus, the
fleets that carried the same quantity of gold to Spain carried what really
was valued at half as much and cost twice as much.

If one follows things from one doubling to the next, one will see how
the cause of the powerlessness of Spanish wealth progressed.

The mines of the Indies have been worked for some two hundred
years. I assume that the quantity of silver at present in the commercial
world is to that which there was before the discovery as 3 2 is to 1 , that is,
it has doubled five times in two hundred more years, and the same
quantity will be to what there was before the discovery as 64 is to 1 , that
is, it will double again. Now, at present fifty quintals 151 of gold ore gives
four, five, and six ounces of gold, and when it only gives two, the miner

15 J See [Amedee F.J Frezier , Relation du voyage detamerdu Sud, du Chili, duPerou, etduBresil
[“Minieres d’or de Tiltil”; i, 185-190; 1717 ednj.

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

covers only his costs. In two hundred years, if it gives only four, the
miner will still make only his costs. Therefore, there will be little profit
in mining gold. The same reasoning follows for silver, except that
working silver mines is a little more advantageous than gold mines.

Now, if one discovers mines so abundant that they give more profit,
the more abundant they are, the sooner the profit will end.

The Portuguese have found so much gold 152 in Brazil that soon the
Spaniards’ profit must necessarily diminish markedly, and their own
also.

I have more than once heard deplored the blindness of the Council
of Francis I for refusing Christopher Columbus’ proposal to go to the
Indies. In truth one did, perhaps imprudendy, a very wise thing. Spain
acted like the foolish king who asked that everything he touched turn
into gold and who was obliged to go back to the gods and beg that they
put an end to his destitution.

The companies and banks that many nations established completed
the debasement of gold and silver in their status as signs, for by new
fictions, they so increased the signs for produce that gold and silver
performed that office only in part and became less precious.

Thus public credit replaced mines and diminished still further the
profit the Spanish drew from theirs.

It is true that Dutch commerce with the Indies gave some price to the
Spanish commodities for, as the Dutch carried silver to barter for the
commodities of the East, in Europe they relieved the Spanish of part of
the produce, which was over- abundant.

And this commerce, which seems to concern Spain only indirectly, is
advantageous to Spain as well as to those nations that engage in it
themselves.

By all that has just been said, one can judge the ordinances of the
Council of Spain, which prohibited the use of gold and silver for gilding
and other superfluities; this is as if the states of Holland made a decree
prohibiting the consumption of cinnamon.

My reasoning does not apply to all mines; those of Germany and
Hungary, from which one gets little more than costs, are very useful.

152 According to Lord Anson, Europe receives from Brazil every year two million sterling of
gold that is found in the sand at the foot of the mountains or in riverbeds. When I wrote the
short book I have mentioned in the first note of this chapter, the proceeds from Brazil were
far from being as important as they are today. [George Anson, A Voyage Round the World in
the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV, pp. 59-64; 1974 edn.]

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They are found in the principal state; they employ several thousand
men who consume the over-abundant produce; the mines are properly
a manufactory 0 of the country.

The German and Hungarian mines make cultivating the land
worthwhile, and working those of Mexico and Peru destroys that
cultivation.

The Indies and Spain are two powers under the same master, but the
Indies are the principal one, and Spain is only secondary. In vain policy
wants to reduce the principal one to a secondary one; the Indies
continue to attract Spain to themselves.

Of the fifty million in commodities which go to the Indies every year,
Spain furnishes only two and a half million; therefore, the Indies
engage in a commerce worth fifty million, and Spain in one worth two
and a half million.

An accidental tax that does not depend on the industry of the nation,
the number of its inhabitants, or the cultivation of its lands is a bad kind
of wealth. The king of Spain, who receives great sums from his customs
houses in Cadiz, is, in this regard, only a very wealthy individual in a
very poor state. Everything goes from foreigners to him with his
subjects taking almost no part in it; this commerce is independent of
the good and bad fortune of his kingdom.

If some of the provinces in Castile gave him a sum like that of the
customs houses in Cadiz, his power would be very much greater: his
wealth would be only the result of the country’s wealth; these provinces
would enliven all the others; and all together they would be in a better
position to support their respective burdens; instead of a great treasury,
one would have a great people.

“See 23.14 (note d , bk. 23). We have used this eighteenth-century English word in
order for Montesquieu’s economics not to appear even more modern than it is.

CHAPTER 23

A problem

It is not for me to pronounce on the question of whether it would be
more worth while for Spain, if it cannot engage in that commerce by
itself, to open the Indies to foreigners. I shall say only that it is suitable

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Commerce: the revolutions it has had in the world

for it to put the fewest obstacles in the way of commerce that its policy
can permit. When the commodities that the various nations carry' to the
Indies are expensive there, the Indies give many of their commodities,
which are gold and silver, for a few of the foreign commodities; the
opposite happens when the latter have a low price. It would perhaps be
useful for these nations to work against each other so that the
commodities they carry to the Indies would always be inexpensive.
These are principles that must be examined without, however, separat-
ing them from other considerations: the security of the Indies, the
usefulness of a single customs house, the dangers of great change, and
the drawbacks that one foresees and which are often less dangerous
than those one cannot foresee.

397

BOOK 22

On laws in their relation to
the use of money

CHAPTER I

The reason for the use of money

Peoples who have little in the way of commodities for commerce, such
as savages, and peoples with a police who have only two or three kinds,
trade by exchange. Thus the Moorish caravans that go to Timbuktu in
the heart of Africa to barter salt for gold need no money. The Moor
puts his salt in a pile; the Negro, his gold dust in another; if there is not
enough gold, the Moor takes back some of his salt or the Negro adds to
his gold, until the parties agree.

But when a people deals in a large number of commodities, there
must necessarily be money, because a metal that is easy to transport
saves much of the cost one would be obliged to incur if one always
proceeded by exchange.

As all nations have reciprocal needs, it often happens that one of
them wants a very large number of the other’s commodities and the
latter very few of the former’s; whereas, with regard to another nation,
the situation is reversed. But when nations have money and proceed by
sale and purchase, the ones that take more commodities settle their
accounts, or pay the excess, with silver; and there is the difference that,
in the case of purchase, commerce is done in proportion to the needs of
the nation that requires the most and, in exchange, commerce is done
only to the extent of the needs of the nation that requires the least; if
this were not so, the latter would find it impossible to settle its accounts.

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The laws and the use of money

CHAPTER 2

On the nature of money

Money is a sign representing the value of all commodities. Some metal
is chosen, so that the sign will be durable , 1 will be little worn by use, and
can be divided many times without being destroyed. A precious metal is
chosen so that the sign can be carried easily. A metal is an altogether
appropriate common measure because it can easily be reduced to the
same grade. Each state stamps it, so that the form reflects the grade and
the weight and so that both may be known simply by looking at it.

Before using metals, the Athenians used oxen , 2 and the Romans
sheep, but one ox is not the same as another in the way one piece of
metal can be the same as another.

As silver is the sign of the values of commodities, paper is a sign of
the value of silver, and when the paper is good, it represents silver so
well that there is no difference in its effect.

Just as silver is the sign of a thing and represents it, each thing is a
sign of silver and represents it; and a state is prosperous insofar as, on
the one hand, the silver indeed represents all things, and on the other,
all things indeed represent silver, and they are signs of one another;
that is, their relative value is such that one can have the first as soon as
one has the other. This happens only in a moderate government, but it
does not always happen in a moderate government; for example, if the
laws favor an unjust debtor, the things belonging to him do not
represent silver and are not a sign of it. With regard to despotic
government, it would be a marvel if things there represented their sign;
tyranny and distrust make everyone bury his silver ; 3 therefore, things
there do not represent silver at all.

Legislators have sometimes used such art that things have not only
represented silver by their nature but they have become money like
silver itself. Caesar 4 as dictator permitted debtors to give lands in

1 Salt, used in Abyssinia, has the shortcoming of constantly wasting away.

2 Herodotus [The Persian Wars] in Clio [1.94], tells us that the Lydians discovered the art of
minting money; the Greeks took it from them; the ancient ox was stamped on the money of
Athens. I have seen one of these coins in the Earl of Pembroke’s collection.

3 It is an old usage in Algiers for each father of a family to have a buried treasure . Laugier de
Tassy ,Histoiredu royaume d’Alger [chap. 8, “Des Mceurs et des Coutumes des Algeriens”;
p. 117; 1720 edn],

4 See Julius Caesar, De hello Civili, bk. 3 [3.1].

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payment to their creditors at the price they fetched before the civil war.
Tiberius 5 ordered that those who wanted silver could have it from the
public treasury by pledging lands worth double the amount. Under
Caesar, lands were the money that paid all debts; under Tiberius, ten
thousand sesterces of land became the money in common use, like five
thousand sesterces of silver.

In England the Magna Carta prohibits seizing the lands or the
income of a debtor when his movable or personal goods are sufficient
for the payment and when he offers to give them; henceforth, all the
goods of an Englishman represented silver.

The Germans’ laws gave an appraisal in silver for the satisfactions
for wrongs one had committed and the penalties for crimes. But as
there was very little silver in the country, the laws reappraised the silver
in produce or livestock. This occurs in the law of the Saxons, with
certain differences for the various peoples according to their ease and
comfort. At first 6 the law declared the value of a sou in livestock; the sou
of two tremises corresponded to an ox of twelve months or a sheep with
its lamb; that of three tremises was worth an ox of sixteen months.
Among these peoples, money became livestock, commodities, or
produce, and these things became silver.

Not only is silver a sign of things, it is also a sign of silver and
represents silver, as we shall see in the chapter on exchange.

5 Tacitus [Annales], bk. 6 [6.17).

6 Leges Saxonum, chap. 18 [66].

CHAPTER 3

On ideal monies

There are real monies and ideal monies. Peoples with a police, almost
all of whom use ideal monies, do so only because they have converted
their real monies into ideal ones. At first, their real monies have a
certain weight and a certain grade of some metal. But soon bad faith or
need makes them withdraw part of the metal from each piece of money,
leaving it with the same name; for example, from a coin weighing a
livre, one takes away half the silver and it is still called a livre; the coin
that was a twentieth part of the livre of silver is still called a sou,

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The lam and the use of money

although it is no longer the twentieth part of that livre. a So, the livre is
an ideal livre and the sou an ideal sou, and the same for the other
subdivisions, and this can reach the point at which what is called a livre
will be no more than a very small portion of a livre, which renders it still
more ideal. It can even happen that a coin worth precisely a livre or a
coin worth a sou is no longer made; so, the livre and the sou will be
purely ideal monies. One will give to each coin the denomination of as
many livres and as many sous as one likes; the variation can be
continual, because it is as easy to give another name to a thing as it is
difficult to change the thing itself.

In order to remove the source of abuses, it is very good, in every
country where one wants commerce to flourish, for there to be a law
that orders one to use real monies and to perform no operation that
might render them ideal.

Nothing should be as exempt from variation as that which is the
common measure of everything.

Trade itself is very uncertain, and it is a great ill to add a new
uncertainty to the one founded on the nature of the thing.

"The livre, or pound, was a measure of weight as well as a unit of the currency.

CHAPTER 4

On the quantity of gold and silver

When nations with a police are masters of the world, the quantities of
gold and silver increase every day, because the nations either mine
them at home or go abroad to find them where they are. On the other
hand, they diminish when barbarian nations gain the advantage. One
knows how scarce these metals were when the Goths and Vandals,
from one side, and the Saracens and Tartars, from the other, had
invaded everywhere.

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chapter 5

Continuation of the same subject

The silver mined in America, transported to Europe, and sent from
there to the east, has favored European navigation; it is an additional
commodity that Europe receives in barter with America and that it
sends to the Indies for barter. Therefore, a greater quantity of gold and
silver is favorable when one considers these metals as commodities; it is
not favorable when one regards them as a sign, because their
abundance runs counter to their status as a sign, which is founded
largely on scarcity.

Before the First Punic War, the proportion of copper